


Redemption

by ragingdevi



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 05, F/M, and feelings, the sex is more graphic than the violence though, there is also fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-08-16 10:02:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 54,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8097907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ragingdevi/pseuds/ragingdevi
Summary: Ever since being let go by Scott and Derek, Deucalion has been in hiding. Except for the mercenary Braden, he hasn’t had contact with anyone in months and no one knows where he is.
Meanwhile, Scott and his pack are enjoying one of Beacon Hills’ rare quiet periods, but that is about to change. A grisly corpse is found and the hunt is on to figure out who – or what – the killer is before they can kill again.(This is an AU that starts after season 4)
UPDATE 21 June 2018:I've been editing this again and ironing some stuff out that I felt was missing or could have been different (like a character swap). It's not too noticeable since it was mostly in the chapters that hadn't been uploaded yet, so it shouldn't be jarring or anything.Hoping to get the rest of this uploaded soon. 
[You can bother me at http://symphonyofmars.tumblr.com with questions, comments, discussions about lore, heart eye emojis, whatever you will :)]





	1. The Disadvantage of Being a Banshee

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this after season 4 ended. I'm a big fan of Deucalion (and Gideon Emery) and I was sad that, after Derek and Scott let him go at the end of 3a, we didn't see him at all during 3b or season 4. But I wanted more Deucalion and I wanted SMUT.  
> So I started writing.  
> And then I did some research.  
> And kept writing.  
> And it developed a plot.  
> And here it is, about a year later.
> 
> (Please tell me if you like it, or if you have any criticisms, etc.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I started writing this after season 4 and wanted to give Deucalion more “screen time” as his better self (you know, that lovely, quippy version of him before he was blinded). It was supposed to be 16 (although it might now be 17) chapters, and I still haven’t finished uploading it on AO3 SINCE I AM STILL WAITING FOR MY FRIEND TO FINISH BETA READING IT FOR ME.
> 
> (Don’t grow up, kiddos. You don’t have time to do anything and neither does anyone else you know.)
> 
> SO ANYWAY, here it is:
> 
> Ever since being let go by Scott and Derek, Deucalion has been in hiding. Except for the mercenary Braden, he hasn’t had contact with anyone in months and no one knows where he is.
> 
> Meanwhile, Scott and his pack are enjoying one of Beacon Hills’ rare quiet periods, but that is about to change. A grisly corpse is found and the hunt is on to figure out who – or what – the killer is before they can kill again.
> 
> (This is an AU that starts after season 4)
> 
> Word count: ~5,187  
> Updated: 15 July 2018

Kira was thankful that Lydia offered to drive her home to spare her from being embarrassed by her dad again. Not that her dad ever did anything particularly embarrassing, well, except for maybe telling the whole world that she had a crush on Scott McCall, but she guessed that was a moot point since they were now dating. Regardless of everything working out, having your dad be a teacher in your own high school never got anyone any ‘cool points.’

 _Cool points?_ Kira thought to herself, _Great, now I sound like a loser even in my own head._

She was thankful she would be home soon and she would be able to take a nap and forget about the day. While being the daughter of the only history teacher in school wasn’t necessarily bad, it was on days when no one did the homework reading and you’re the only one he calls on because he _knows_ you know the answers. After her nap she was planning on finishing what must have been her twentieth run of Final Fantasy 7, she already knew she wouldn’t have the energy to deal with anyone else until tomorrow. At least the peaceful scenery going by was soothing enough. Car… big tree… house… barn… closed park gate… another car… another big tree… another house… another barn… another—

_Wait._

Kira turned her head ever so slightly so she could observe Lydia without her noticing. She stared at her for a few minutes and then decided to test her hypothesis.

“Do you like this song?” She asked.

“Yeah…” Lydia replied, eyes wistful but still on the road. “It’s kind of weird though don’t you think?”

“What’s weird about it?”

“I don’t know, it sounds like–”

Kira tapped her nail against the plastic of the car radio and Lydia turned to see the origin of the noise. She saw that the radio was currently off.

Lydia sighed. “Not again…”

Kira remained quiet for the rest of the ride, not wanting to disturb whatever it was that made Lydia’s banshee powers work. They pulled into an inlet to the woods and got out.

“So, where are we going?”

“I don’t know yet,” Lydia said and set off so quickly Kira had to try to keep up.

* * *

They had walked so far that Kira couldn’t tell where the car was anymore and wondered if they’d ever get back to civilization. She was also beginning to wish she had the forethought to turn on the RunTracker app on her phone because she wondered if she was tired because of how far they walked or because she was massively out of shape. She resolved to start running again if they got out of the woods alive, something she was beginning to become worried about because of the fading daylight and the creepy darkness of the trees around her.

“I know I’m not really supposed to talk while you’re looking for a body–”

“I don’t look for them, I just kind of find them.”

“However it works,” Kira conceded as she almost tripped over a fallen branch. “You have to admit we’ve been out here for a while.”

Lydia finally stopped walking and looked around, annoyed.

“Sorry. I don’t know, maybe I’m slipping.”

“Maybe we should just give up for now and come back tomorrow.”

Lydia looked around one last time.

“Yeah, let’s go back to the car.”

Kira turned and walked in the direction she thought the car was. Realizing they weren’t totally lost because they lived in the modern world, she opened her Maps app to try and figure out where the car might be and convinced herself it would be just like looking at the map in Fallout.

A Lydia turned, the wind brushed against her ear carrying the sound she first heard when they got out of the car. The scream of death elicited when a person passed, a noise that only her banshee ears could hear. But there was something strange entwined in it, under the fading scream she could hear a single voice lifted up in song. She turned her face into the wind to find the origin of the sound.

By the time Kira realized she was walking alone, Lydia was already several feet away.

“What is it?” She called after her.

“I think I know where it is!” Lydia yelled back and broke into a run in the direction of the sound.

Kira ran after her - and when Lydia stopped at the edge of a ditch - collided with her, nearly sending both of them over the edge.

“Oh my god,” Lydia whispered in shock.

“Ugh,” Kira said and turned away. “Can’t anyone ever die nicely around here? Like a heart attack or peacefully in their beds?”

“I think Beacon Hills is a statistical anomaly that way,” Lydia replied as she crouched and tried to observe the body from her vantage point.

The face of the victim looked as if it had been pulled almost entirely off. The lower jaw was missing, the throat opened up, and the chest was shredded down to the belly. The flesh and sinew was ragged like the edges of fraying fabric and stretched away from the body like boody ribbons. The leaves around the body were stained with red of destroyed viscera.

“Call Scott,” Lydia said, unable to look away.

“I am _so_ already on it.”

* * *

When Scott and Stiles arrive to where Lydia’s car was parked, they had to play a game of Marco Polo to find them.

“Why don’t you know where you are?” Scott asked as he and Stiles turned around _again_ because Kira sent them in the wrong direction.

“We were walking around for a while as Lydia was doing her banshee thing.”

“Your scent is all over these woods. I think you’ve successfully made it difficult for me to find you.”

“Really? I think I see you.”

“What? I don’t see you anywhere.”

“Turn around,” Kira said as she waved one hand in the air above her.

In the distance both Scott and Stiles spun around, scanning the area. Scott saw Kira waving and hung up. They both ran over.

“In the ditch,” Kira said gesturing.

In the time it took Scott and Stiles to find each other, drive out to the woods, and find them on foot, Kira had firmly decided that, were she to ever die a grisly death helping to save Beacon Hills from the Big Bad Du Jour, she didn’t want anyone looking at her and wanted to be cremated immediately.

Lydia, on the other hand, was in the ditch attempting to examine the body. Stiles jumped into the ditch and began helping her.

“Ugh, wow,” Scott said.

“Yeah,” Kira replied uncomfortably.

Scott touched her arm gently. He wanted to console her because she, turned away as she was from the ditch and trying not to look in, was clearly uncomfortable. He drew her gaze to his eyes and gave her a sympathetic smile which Kira returned unconvincingly. He decided to leave well enough alone and joined Stiles and Lydia in the ditch while Kira stayed on the high ground.

Stiles took the folded up tarp he had be carrying under her arm and put it on the floor. “Does this remind you of anything in the bestiary, Lydia?”

“Wendigoes, for one.”

“But why would it take their jaw?” Scott asked.

“Their jaw is gone?” Kira called down.  

“Yeah,” Lydia affirmed.

“Ugh, _EW_. Sorry, I didn’t really look.”

“That’s okay,” Scott wanted to say more, to make her feel less gross about finding bodies.

“I’m not a hundred percent sure how a wendigo feeds,” Lydia started, interrupting Scott’s thought. “I figured it was just that the thing that killed them ate so much of them. But it could be some other reason, I’m not sure how many supernaturals have M.O.s like serial killers. I’ll have to go through it again.”

“I can help,” Stiles offered.

Lydia raised an eyebrow, “Unless you speak archaic Latin, you won’t be much of a help.”

Scott looked at Stiles who shifted his weight awkwardly.

“I can… aggregate information.”

Lydia raised her eyebrow higher and lowered her gaze. She knew when she was being used.

“Don’t you have a test tomorrow?”

“Yeah, but I don’t _have_ to study.”

“Or you don’t want to study,” Scott said as he folded his arms.

Stiles looked from Lydia to Scott and back and began shouting and gesturing wildly.

“I hate art history! I don’t understand why I have to take it!”

Lydia smiled, “So you can become a fully rounded human being?”

“So you can have taste?” Kira asked from above.

Scott pointed in the direction of Kira’s voice and nodded in agreement.

Stiles saw he was outnumbered but protested anyway.

“I have taste.”

“Okay,” Scott said as he picked up the tarp and began unfolding it. “Let’s just bring the body to Deaton and we can discuss Stiles’ lack of taste later.

"I have taste,” Stiles protested again as Scott shook his head and Lydia pretended to agree with him.

* * *

Once they had lugged it the half mile out of the woods and over to Stiles’ jeep, bringing the body to Deaton was easy. Once in the examination room, it was laid supine on the examining table while Deaton leaned over it.  While Scott and Stiles were the picture of concern, Kira decided to hide form the body in the waiting room. Lydia elected to go back to her house and was already pouring over the Argent bestiary, trying to find an attack style that matched the wounds of the victim.

Deaton furrowed his brow as he carefully investigated the body.

“Initially, when you said the body looked like it had been eaten I thought we might be dealing with another wendigo.”

“What, like the black sheep of the family with the walk-in fridge? This one prefers free range human?”

Deaton looked directly into Stiles’ eyes for a moment, and then very pointedly went back to his examination.

Stiles cleared his throat, “That’s what Lydia said.”

Deaton shook his head, “But the way this flesh is torn at is unlike any wendigo bites I’ve ever seen. Their teeth are very much like the mouth of a lamprey, many rows of sharp, small teeth. This looks like it was done with larger teeth… or maybe talons.”

“Talons?” Scott asked. “Like a bird?”

“Yes. The way the flesh ribbons at the edges looks more like something large and sharp took hold and pulled until the skin and muscle ripped under the force.”

“So we’re looking for some kind of large bird, or something with really big teeth?”

“That’s my guess for now. Whatever it is, it certainly made a mess of its prey.”

“Is that the end of your examination? I have to call my dad and we need to put the body back.”

“I’d like to take some pictures, maybe a sample or two that won’t be missed. But that won’t take long, call your dad whenever you like.”

Stiles walked into the waiting room to make the call.

Kira quickly looked up from her phone with the same expression of a student who just got in trouble for looking at their phone during class.

“Uh, Lydia hasn’t found anything yet.”

“Okay, I’m calling my dad,” he said as he dialed. “We’re going to have to take the body back.”

“Is it okay if I don’t go? I mean, I didn’t exactly help you guys carry it in, and it kind of grosses me out.”

Stiles put his phone to his ear and shrugged.

“You can stay here if you want.”

“Cool.”

"Dad?” Stiles asked into his phone. He walked to the other side of the waiting area.

Kira looked back down at her phone and started typing.  
  


Kira: I don’t think I have as strong a stomach as you guys.

Lydia: What do you mean?

Kira: The body…

Lydia: Ah. That’s fine, not everybody does.

Kira: I feel bad though I don’t want Scott to think I’m

Kira: weak

Lydia: You’re not weak. Not everyone can be a butcher, you know? Some people are chefs instead.

Kira looked at her phone quizzically and responded.

Kira: Um, I think I know what you mean, but plaese explain?

Kira: *please

Lydia: Like, a butcher can take apart an entire animal and not be bothered, a chef uses those pieces to make something else but may be bothered to see them looking much more like the alive animal than they’re used to.

Lydia: I only half thought that analogy through, to be honest.

Lydia: But what I’m trying to say is, it doesn’t matter that you’re grosses out but finding a horribly mutilated body because you can do other stuff that doesn’t involve that.

Kira: I get it. But I still wish I didn’t feel sick looking at it. I wish I could be more like you were.

Lydia: Well, for me it’s kind of an occupational hazard.

Lydia: Being a banshee and all. Lol

Kira: Lol  
  


Kira smiled at her phone and sat up straighter. Stiles shoved his phone back into his pocket as he walked back over.

“Okay, when Deaton is done we’re going to bring the body back to where you guys found it. You’re cool to stay here?”

“Completely fine with it.”

“Okay. Scott and I will pick you up when we’re done.”

Scott walked back into the waiting room, “He’s all wrapped up.”

Stiles clapped his hands together, “Let’s put him in the car,” and walked back into the examination room to get the body.

“Do you want to help?” Scott asked as he turned to Kira.

“No, I’ll stay here. Lugging around a mutilated corpse isn’t really fun or… non-nauseating to me.”

“I didn’t think you’d say yes, I just didn’t want you to feel left out.” Scott said and smiled.

“Trust me, if you start training for the doubles division of the corpse-carrying championships, you can leave me all the way out of it.”

Scott smiled again, “Did Lydia find anything yet?”

“No, but she’s keeping me posted.”

“Okay, we’ll see you when we get back.”

Scott walked over and gave Kira a quick kiss.

“Have fun,” Kira said as he turned to walk away.

Scott turned around and gave her a confused look.

“I mean, as much fun as lugging a dead guy around can be.”

Scott smiled wryly and walked away. Kira rolled her eyes at her blunder and went back to looking at her phone. She could hear Scott and Stiles take the body out the back door to load it into Stiles’ car.

Deaton walked into the room and leaned against the molding.

“You know,” he began, almost startling Kira, “not wanting to be around the dead isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It just means you can never live out your dream of being a mortician.”

Kira chuckled softly. “Lydia said the same thing, just not the mortician part.”

“If I could give some advice?”

“Sure.”

“Not everyone is good at the same things.”

“Lydia said that too. Only, she used a metaphor.”

“She’s a smart girl.”

“Yeah.”

Deaton smiled and turned to walk back into the examination room and analyze the samples he took.

Kira’s phone buzzed and she looked down at the notification.

“A smart girl who thinks she may have found something.”

Deaton spun back around, “Oh?”

“She said to ask if you know what a…” Kira couldn’t gauge how the word was supposed to be pronounced. “Hull… huldra? is?”

Deaton’s eyes widened. He hoped that he was successfully displaying a look of concern, but to Kira he just looked scared.

* * *

Instead of immediately picking up Kira and dropping everyone off home, Scott and Stiles came back to Deaton’s office to find he, Lydia, and Kira gathered around a pile of papers strewn across the examining table.

“Good, you’re back,” Lydia said as she looked up.

“Does all of this mean you found something?” Scott asked.

“Maybe,” Lydia said as she handed Scott a copy of the relevant bestiary pages. “The bestiary speaks of a being called a Huldra, or in Swedish ‘Skogsrået’. It’s a guardian of the forest that is said to look like a beautiful woman and, like the sirens of ancient Greek myth, would sing to ensnare her victims and either wed them… or eat them.”

“You think that’s what killed our victim?” Scott asked as Stiles took the copy out of his hand and flipped through them.

“Yes. Our guy was found in the woods, he was…”

“Devoured,” Kira offered and shifted at the thought.

Lydia looked at her friend and sighed. “Yes.”

“Scott, before I found him I heard what I thought sounded like singing. I don’t know if she was there or if it was some kind of left over, but I know I heard it.”

“Okay,” Scott said thoughtfully, “what does the bestiary say it looks like?”

“That’s the difficult part,” Lydia said as she rolled her eyes. “All it says is that it looks like, 'a beautiful young woman.’”

Stiles looked up from the pages briefly. “So we have two possible candidates in front of us is what you’re saying?”

Scott frowned. “Well, we know it’s not any of the women we know so that brings it down by what, six or seven?”

“There are thousands of women in Beacon Hills. How are we supposed to find one person?” Kira asked.

Deaton offered some rationality, “Is there a way we can draw it out of its hiding?”

“The book says they inhabit forests so I suppose we could check the woods,” Lydia said as she shook her head. “It also says they watch over the kilns of charcoal makers, but I don’t think there are any colliers around here.”

Scott furrowed his brow, “A collier is a…?”

“Someone who makes charcoal.”

“That’s weirdly specific,” Kira stated flatly.

Lydia shrugged. “Most professions have a specific name.”

Kira nodded. The thought had never crossed her mind.

“Is there anything else?” Scott asked.

Lydia searched her thoughts. The entry on huldras was brief but still, it _was_ in archaic Latin.

“They would sometimes bless hunters if they were kind to them or would help people who willingly offered their blood to them. They’re described as lonely and sad. Maybe that’s why they sing, I don’t know.”

“What does this picture mean?” Stiles asked, holding up one of the pages.

Lydia squinted at the words for a second before remembering what she read.

“’The huldra is often said to be tied to a specific grove or singular, large tree.’”

Stiles looked at the page again and put it on the table so everyone else could look at it.

“It looks like she’s turning into a tree.”

“The majority of this entry seems to be from Swedish sources, and it says that in the south she’s said to have the ears and tail of a cow or fox, but tales of her from the north say she had a hollowed out back and skin like tree bark. But both of those are like… hidden versions of herself. Also, this line here,” Lydia said as she pointed to the excerpt, “says that you should never mention her ears or tail because she would take offense and kill you over it.”

“Sensitive,” Stiles said and looked to Scott.

Scott raised a brow and nodded.

“I found it somewhat amusing.”

“So…” Scott began, “all we have to go on is that she’s pretty and may or may not be singing?”

Lydia swept the papers together into a pile and tapped them on edge to straighten them out.

“Apparently.”

“That is so not helpful,” Stiles said and turned to Scott, folding his arms.

“It really isn’t,” Scott agreed.

The group stood in silent reflection as they all processed what Lydia learned from the bestiary. Scott leaned on the table with both hands as Lydia quietly thumbed through the pages again trying to see if there was some more helpful tidbit she missed.

Kira was quietly thinking, her brow furrowed, before she finally spoke.

“Maybe she’s like me.”

Scott looked up at her.

“What do you mean?”

“You can see the fox part of me when you look at me with your other eyes, maybe we can find her the same way.”

“The both of you walking around with glowing eyes all the time? That might get suspicious, don’t you think?” Stiles asked.

Kira sighed, “I don’t mean all the time, obviously. But if we check the woods that way, maybe we can find her. Scott, you said the fox is bright, it’d be like using night vision goggles.”

Scott pushed off the table and stood up straight.

“That might work… good idea.”

Kira smiled.

“Okay, but even with Malia and Liam that’s only four people, you still have acres and acres of forest to cover,” Stiles pointed out.

“You can start near where you found the body. If she’s as committed to being in the woods as the bestiary says, she could still be in that area.” Deaton said.

“What about what you said about the body?” Scott asked. “That it looked like huge teeth or talons ripped him apart? How does that mesh with 'a beautiful woman’?”

“Perhaps that’s what the huldra is hiding. Maybe her appearance of a beautiful woman is a mask, hiding something more terrifying, and clearly more formidable, underneath.”

The teens all stood for a moment as they mulled over the words of the druid.

“We’ll look through the woods tomorrow,” Scott stated.

“You should stay away from where we found the body, my dad and his deputies will still be all over it,” Stiles said with a yawn.

Scott nodded slowly. That Sheriff Stilinski and his men would be in the immediate area of the body went without saying. If he wasn’t already so aware of how tired his friend was, Scott might be a little annoyed that he seemed to think so little him as to point it out. The corner of Scott’s mouth curled upwards. He could practically smell the melatonin coming off of him.

“Let’s go back to our respective homes and get some sleep for now. We’ll meet up tomorrow morning and finish our plans.”

Stiles was led the way out of the room with Lydia and Kira behind him. As Scott moved to leave, Deaton gripped his arm. Scott turned around, his face moving from shock to concern as he did so.

“What?” Scott asked.

“Just… be careful tomorrow. You know nothing about this person and very little about what they are.”

“We will be.”

“Remember: not all myths are right. Even the bestiary has its blind spots.”

Scott tried to reassure his friend with a smile and a nod. Deaton let go of his arm and Scott left to rejoin his friends.

* * *

“You really should study for your art history test,” Lydia finally said to Stiles as they and Kira walked across the parking lot to Stiles’ jeep. It had been bugging her since he tried to use helping her as an excuse not to study earlier that night.

Stiles yawned and spun his keys around his finger absentmindedly. “Well, it’s too late now.”

“You could at least review so you don’t completely fail.”

“That’s easy for you to say, you’re a genius.”

“Stiles,” Lydia stopped dead in her tracks and cocked her head at her friend. Stiles turned to face her. Lydia continued.

“I’m not brain meltingly smart for my age because I was born this way, I’m constantly studying. Also, I know how to use my time wisely and study the correct way.”

“What’s ‘the correct way?’”

“Have you ever heard of the Spaced Repetition System?”

Stiles looked to Kira who shrugged.

“Uh, no. Should I have?”

Lydia continued walking as she explained. Stiles followed, intrigued, while Kira turned around, wondering what was keeping Scott.

“They don’t teach it in school, so no. I only found out about it when I was having problems with French in middle school.”

Stiles was somewhat surprised, “You were having problems with French? Wasn’t that the first of the many languages you speak?”

“That’s the problem when you try to learn a language that no one around you speaks and it’s treated less like a language and more like a subject in school that you’ll never need later. I’ll let you borrow my SRS books, it’s not hard to learn. There’s even an app for it now. You can use it for the rest of the class.”

“Wow, thank you, Lydia.”

At the sound of the office door opening they all turned around and watched as Scott jogged over to them.

“What took you so long?” Kira asked.

“Deaton told me we should be careful since we really don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

“He’s right,” Lydia said, “We saw what it could do and we don’t know how powerful it really is.”

“I was originally thinking we should split up and comb the forest, but now I’m thinking we should stick together in case she’s really that dangerous.” Scott took his phone out of his pocket, “I’ll text Liam right now. Hopefully he’s not asleep yet.”

Stiles shoved his hands in his pockets trying to find his own phone, “I’ll text Malia.”

“Where is she, by the way?” Lydia asked.

* * *

At the beginning of the year Malia had made a new friend in her chemistry lab partner; a girl who wore all black and, Malia thought, maybe too much eye makeup. They had time to chat while their first experiment was coming to a boil over the Bunsen burner, and Malia asked her why she dressed the way she did. One topic lead into another and Malia was being regaled on the histories of Goth fashion and death metal music. Malia couldn’t help but be intrigued, music where the singer wasn’t singing but it still sounded good? She expressed a desire to see such music in person if only to discover how it worked. The girl told her she couldn’t beat a live show and that one of her favorite local bands always played at Titan, a club on the outskirts of town.

That’s where Malia was now, weaving her way through the crowd as she tried to get closer to the stage. The crowd buzzed as everyone talked excitedly, she figured they must be people who met up there regularly to listen to music and see their friends. She knew that she must have missed the first band but wasn’t sure if she missed the second as well, and she couldn’t remember if the band her lab partner told her about was second or third. If she were being honest, she also couldn’t remember the band’s name and she was hoping she’d recognize if someone said it. The hum of the crowd grew louder as the techs finished setting up the instruments and band members walked onto the stage one by one. First the drummer, a somewhat short man with a blue Mohawk who smiled and waved at the applause that greeted him before sitting behind the kit and making final adjustments. Then a very tall and muscular man came onto the stage as he was finishing his drink, put the cup down on the drum riser, picked up his guitar without acknowledging the crowd and tested its tuning. Malia marveled at the length of his hair for a moment, before two other musicians, both with long hair, came out and picked up their respective instruments. As the band members milled about onstage, checking tuning and signaling to the guy at the soundboard at the back of the room, Malia looked at their faces. She was trying to get a good look at the 'corpse paint’ her lab partner had told her about. She didn’t think it looked very corpse-like, but she supposed it kind of, sort of, looked like a vague artistic interpretation of a skull.

If she squinted.

Her thought process was violently interrupted by the renewed vigor of the crowd. Malia looked to find what could have sparked such a reaction, and saw the singer walk out onto the stage. The singer, smaller than the other band members and dwarfed by the lead guitarist, had long black curls and a face covered in makeup that faded from black to red as it moved from the forehead down to the cheekbones and then was white from there down. Malia wondered if that was called corpse paint too since it didn’t look like a skull or like a corpse at all. Then she wondered who decides such things.

The lead guitarist introduced the band, Sister of Ash, Malia smiled to herself. Now she recalled that Sister of Ash was the last band to go on and was the band her lab partner told her she _needed_ to see. As she was being quietly proud of herself at remembering this information, the crowd lost its collective mind around her and people started jumping and slamming into each other and shaking their heads around. Malia was surprised at first but remembered the 'mosh pit’ and 'head banging’ her lab partner warned her about. Malia decided she could mosh but she would have to be careful not to hurt anyone, and she smiled and started jumping with everyone else.

Through all the vibrations from the noise and people jumping around, Malia felt a distinct vibration come from her pocket and fished her phone out.

Stiles: Where are you?

Malia: At a concert.

She put her phone back and went back to throwing herself into people when it buzzed again. She sighed and pulled it out of her pocket as she found a less turbulent place to reply.

Stiles: Since when do you go to concerts?

Malia: Since I’m not a coyote anymore?

Malia: Someone in my class told me about it so I decided to check it out.

Stiles: Why didn’t you tell me about it? I could have gone with you.

Malia: Honestly, I don’t think you’d like it. It might give you a panic attack.

Malia: It’s also very loud.

Stiles: You don’t know that.

Malia: Okay, if I come here again you’re more than welcome to come with.

Stiles: Cool. Call me when you get home, I need to tell you about what we’re doing tomorrow.

Malia: Okay. Later.

Malia put her phone back in her pocket and pushed her way back into the crowd before throwing herself into someone. The person laughed and shoved her back.

She spent the rest of the show enjoying the music and guarding smaller people at the edge of the mosh pit so they wouldn’t get injured. She felt it was her duty as someone much stronger than anyone else in the room to make sure that people could enjoy the music without getting hurt and garnered at least one confused look from a man twice her size who thought it was weird that he slammed into her and she didn’t budge.


	2. Work, Work, Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang go out looking for the baddie.
> 
> (I'm the best at summaries, I know.)
> 
> Word Count: 3830  
> Edited: 15 July 2018

All day long Liam had referred to the group as “Task Force: Huldra” in his head. This was mostly because, the only time he did say it aloud, he got some odd looks from the rest of the pack. He thought he was getting into the spirit, if they were going to spend all their time looking for something then they should have a cool name, or at least an ironic one. No one thought it was funny.

He thought it was funny.

The group, task force or no, convened at Scott’s house to discuss final plans before going out into the woods to search for evidence. Scott, Liam, Kira, Malia, and Lydia were gathered around the kitchen table as Stiles leaned over a map of that section of the woods and illustrated the plan.

“Okay, this here,” Stiles said as he circled a spot on the map, “is where the deputies were dispatched to search for evidence. My dad said, ‘Please stay as far away from there as possible because I can’t think of any good reason that would actually convince anyone to not be suspicious of your being there.’ So let’s try and cut him some slack for once.”

“Easily done,” Scott said. “If we go in a U around it,” Scott said as he traced the map with his finger, “maybe we can find… I don’t know. Anything.”

“Remember to use your eyes the whole time,” Lydia reminded. “If you’re not, they could slip right past you.”

“The plan is to not let that happen,” Scott reiterated.

"Let’s go,” Malia urged.

“You have this in your phone, right?” Stiles asked the group as he folded up the map.

“I do,” Liam said and raised his hand.

“Okay then,” Stiles said. “Happy hunting.”

“You’re not coming?” Malia asked.

“No, Lydia said she’d show me how to study for my art history class.”

Malia turned to Lydia with a smile. “You’re showing him SRS?”

Lydia nodded, “Mhm.”

Stiles looked from Lydia to Malia, “Does everyone know about this except for me?”

“I showed her when she took her summer classes.”

“It made history so easy,” Malia gushed. “You’ll like it, I promise.”

She walked over and gave Stiles a kiss.

“Later, nerd.”

Malia walked out the door and Stiles followed her to the threshold.

“Actually, I’m trying to become smarter, I think that makes me more like someone who is not a nerd but aspires to be a nerd!” Stiles yelled.

He swore he could hear Malia laughing before the car door slammed and it pulled away. Stiles smiled as he closed the door. A _thud!_ made him spin around. Lydia had a bag filled with books and supplies she had just hefted onto the table and began to lay them out as Stiles walked over and sat down.

“Okay, here’s the book all about how it works. These are the cards I made for a class so I could show you what they look like when they’re done. It’s actually better to make physical cards than use the app, but it’s a lot easier to carry them around in your phone so I’ll show you how to set them up in the app too. Do you have your art history book?”

Stiles rummaged through his backpack until he found it and added it to the growing mess on the table.

“Okay,” Lydia said as she sat. “This system is about refreshing yourself at certain intervals this way you retain the information.”

“So it’s memorization.”

“It’s not memorization. It’s more like the way you learn when you’re a toddler…”

Scott drove through the wooded roads with the high-beams on as Liam sat in the front passenger seat and navigated using the GPS coordinates that Stiles saved before they removed the body the night before. They had decided to look for an entrance that was more north of the one Lydia parked at when she found the body in order to avoid the deputies finding their car while they were in the woods.

Kira and Malia sat in the back seat, each looking out their own window. Kira, bored of sitting in silence, turned to Malia.

“So, Stiles said you were at a concert last night?”

“Yep.”

“What kind of music?”

“Kind?”

“Yeah, there are many different kinds. ’Genres.’”

“Oh, it’s called 'death metal’? My lab partner in chemistry told me about it.”

“Cool. Did you like it?”

“Yeah, it was fun. The band had face paint and the singer screamed. The music was loud and intense and aggressive and everyone was kicking their legs and running into each other. It was great.”

Kira laughed, “Sounds like a metal show.”

“Why is it called ‘metal’?”

Kira thought for a moment. It wasn’t anything she ever considered. “You know what? I have no idea.”

“Hmm,” Malia said to herself as she went back to looking out the window. “I’ll have to look it up later.”

Kira went back to looking out her own window and they were again in silence.

Liam turned to Scott. “So, what is this thing exactly?”

“It’s called a huldra. The bestiary didn’t say anything about it that was overtly helpful. Just that it will look like a young woman and might be hiding another form. We’re going to look through the forest with our wolf eyes, so if we run into it—er, her, we’ll able to see what’s underneath. It was Kira’s idea.”

Liam turned to Kira. “Clever.”

“Thanks,” Kira said and smiled.

Liam turned back to Scott. “We don’t know anything else about it?”

“Well,” Scott began, “we know it’s a Swedish legend. Her powers involve singing, so we might get lucky and hear her. And we’re trying to look past her outward appearance because of the ‘disguise’ thing.”

“What are we going to do if we find her?”

“I’d like to try and talk to her if I can. If she tries to fight us, we may not have a choice. But I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that.”

“Fighting is a last resort, got it.”

Liam looked down at his phone and realized they had driven beyond the boundaries of his screen. He dragged the map until he found them again. They were much closer to their destination now and he was beginning to feel nervous. He was used to werewolf things – finally – and he was getting used to the idea of other beings from folklore and legend being real, but not knowing anything about this ‘huldra’ creature made all the nervousness he felt when he was first turned come flooding back.

Scott drove, alternately watching the road and Liam. The corner of his mouth turned up and he wondered if the feeling he felt was something that Alphas normally felt about their betas, or if it was more like the way a parent felt about their child.

“Do you remember when we first met?” Scott asked causing Liam to look up from his phone.

“What do you mean?”

“You were just transferred that semester because of your anger issues, you were basically mad all the time, you’d fly off the handle at anything and you wouldn’t even talk to me when I first turned you?”

“Yeah…” Liam said and looked at Scott tentatively. “Why are you bringing it up?”

“It’s just that… I’m really proud of you. You’ve come a long way. Not just as a werewolf, you seem to have calmed down a lot in general.”

Liam shrugged. “I guess learning to control the wolf is also helping me learn to control my own impulses. I’m not sure that makes sense…” He shook his head as he trailed off.

“It does. You could use being a werewolf as a metaphor for any part of your life that requires you to exercise more control than you think you have, or that involves big, terrifying changes. We’re still just teenagers Liam, we have adulthood ahead of us but we have the combined advantage and handicap of being supernatural. Learning to control it is… a lot like growing up in general. It makes sense.” Scott smiled reassuringly.

Liam smiled and went back to looking at the map.

“What does the map say?”

“We’re almost there. Make a left…” Liam looked from the road to his phone and back again. “Up there.”

Scott turned left into an inlet with a log barrier and stopped the car. “I guess we’re getting out.”

Stiles and Lydia sat at the table which was covered in index cards with picture of paintings, artists, and art concepts on them. Lydia absentmindedly looked at her phone as she waited for Stiles to finish writing; he was halfway through a pile of index cards and was currently defining the word ‘voussior.’

“I would love for someone to explain to me why someone felt the need to create a word for, ‘a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, used in building an arch or vault.’ Why not call it a stone and be done with it?”

“Hmm…” Lydia tilted her head skeptically. “Maybe for the same reason we call a pen a pen and not, ‘that thing used for writing, no, not that, the other one’?”

Stiles sighed and smiled as he put his pen down and let his shoulders slump forward.

“Things are normally named to discern them from other things, Stiles. Just think about how much more you’ll know when it’s all done with.”

“Yeah, I’m sure I’ll be able to impress all the cashiers at the grocery store with my extensive knowledge about Rodin and chiaroscuro,” Stiles retorted as he picked up an index card and winged it across the table.

Lydia frowned, pressing her lips together. “One, knowing when he was born and when he died is not ‘extensive’, by any means. Two, maybe it’s not so much for impressing other people, maybe it’s for understanding the world.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t learn things because I want to impress people and make them think I’m smart, I learn because I want to know everything.”

Stiles raised an eyebrow and cocked his head. He didn’t understand.

Lydia inhaled, as she thought. “Okay,” she started again. “Sure, you can feel better about yourself if you know more than other people but what are you doing with everything you know? Using it to lord over other people because it makes you feel better than them?” Lydia was getting into her own speech. “No, that’s not what knowledge is for. It’s like… just recently I had to use my knowledge of ancient Latin to read the bestiary again because of these attacks, right?”

“Right.”

“Right. So I’m using my knowledge of all the things I’ve learned to help us and hopefully save some people.”

“Couldn’t you learn things because of a desire to impress and then end up using that information to help people?” She laughed.

“You could, but people would probably hate you for being an asshole most of the time.”

Stiles opened his mouth to respond but then decided it was better to not argue in favor of being an asshole. He closed his mouth and nodded instead.

“Who knows?” Lydia continued. “Anything you learn could end up proving useful someday, and the only way you’ll know if any of it is useful is if you learn it all.”

“You’re saying that my knowledge of…” Stiles shuffled through a bunch of index cards and picked one at random. “’Chryselephantine’.” He flipped the card over and mumbled to himself, “’sculpture made of gold and ivory.’ Why do I need to know this?” He shouted as he waved the card around and then threw it flat against the table where it landed with a thwap!”

Lydia raised an eyebrow and smiled.

“Why are you smiling?” Stiles asked as he tried to put the cards back in order.

“You sound like me when I was a little kid.”

“What?”

“In the first grade I decided I hated math, utterly hated it—“

“But you’re amazing at math now. If you don’t invent some new formula in college, I’ll be seriously confused.”

“Now I’m good at it. But at the time I didn’t understand anything and thought I was stupid, so to compensate I said I hated it and refused to even do my worksheets.”

“So you’re saying I’m trying to cover for thinking I’m stupid?”

“Seems like it.”

Stiles considered this as he put his hands in his lap and stared blankly at the mess of books and index cards.

“Stiles, you’re really good at all the stuff we do as a pack; finding people who… finding bad guys and stopping them, basically. But that isn’t all there is to know of life. Intelligence isn’t something you’re born with, it’s something you work for. And that isn’t just me saying that to make you think you can do it – there was one study that found that students are better at math the more they practice, and another study that found that students will do better on tests if they have a ‘can do’ attitude and at least try. Knowledge isn’t a constant, it’s something you add to, and knowing any of these things may not be useful on its own, but by combining it with the things you already know, you could come up with conclusions that you never would have been able to without it.”

Stiles turned and looked at Lydia.

“But that’s something you already do, isn’t it? Solve puzzles?”

Stiles viewed her as she hoped that some part of her speech made sense to him and was sinking in. His phone vibrated against the table, drawing their attention. He picked it up and looked at it. “The app finished downloading.”

Lydia gestured to him to give her the phone, “Let me show you.”

Stiles forfeited his phone and Lydia opened the app.

“So, the app works the same way—“

The phone buzzed again.

“Malia just sent you a text,” she said as she handed the phone back.

Stiles closed the app and read the message.

“Did they find something?”

Stiles opened his mouth as he read the message, somewhat confused.

“Um, she wants to know if either of us want to go see the metal band she saw yesterday at Titan.”

“That has absolutely nothing to do with finding the huldra,” Lydia said and laughed.

Stiles chuckled. “She must have had a good time if she wants to go back and wants all of us to go. Would you go?”

“I don’t listen to metal, but I’m game if it means I get to wear my leather pants and do a bit of a Goth look.”

“You don’t really wear black. I’m surprised.”

“Everyone likes to look a little dangerous once in a while. Also, they’re red leather. My mom bought them when she went through her hair metal phase in the 80s. I found them in the attic a month ago and they fit me. I need to wear them.”

“Your mom went through a hair metal phase?”

“Yep, I should find the album and show you the pictures. She had some hairdo back then.”

Stiles laughed.

“So I’ll tell her we’ll both go?”

“Sure.”

Stiles typed out a quick response and opened the app, “Alright, now, show me how this bad boy works.”

Malia stood still looking at her phone as her friends walked ahead of her. All of them had glowing eyes as they searched the woods with their powers. She smiled to herself at Stiles’ response and shoved her phone back into her pocket before jogging to catch up with her friends.

"Are you sure we shouldn’t at least split up into teams of two?” Liam asked.

“I know it sounds like a good idea, but we have almost no idea what we’re up against,” Scott answered.

“And you didn’t see the body. It was horrible,” Kira added.

“But we’re werewolves and a werecoyote and a kitsune. We can totally handle more than any human can,” Liam protested.

“I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” Scott said firmly.

Liam could see that his line of questioning was squashed. He decided not to press it further.

“So…” Malia began tentatively. “If we can see it and see through its disguise, what will it look like?”

“Either a cow, a fox, or a tree,” Kira answered. She knew that it would sound stupid. The huldra could be either of those things and they were all such different things - an herbivore, a carnivore, and a plant - but it was the truth.

“What?” Said Malia, thinking she had heard wrong.

“It just won’t look human,” Kira replied with a shrug.

“That’s not very helpful.”

“Well, I’m sure most people wouldn’t think of an electro-fox when they look at me.”

Malia viewed Kira for a moment. She had never gotten a good look at the fox before and felt it would have been rude if she kept sneaking peeks at her while they were supposed to be concentrating on something else. Liam too, turned around to look at Kira for a moment before continuing walking.

“I never knew what it looked like. That’s pretty cool.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“So whatever we’re looking for could be bright enough for us to see from pretty far away.”

“Hopefully,” Scott answered.

Liam shrugged. “That might make it a little easier.”

“Just keep your eyes open, and check for new scents,” Scott said to the party. “Liam, are you keeping an eye on the GPS? I don’t want to wander too close to the officers in case something happens.”

“We should go… that way then,” Liam said and pointed to their right. Everyone changed the course of their walking to match.

No one would admit they were getting tired - or at the very least restless - as they walked, although they had been walking for almost three and a half hours. At various points each member of the search party wondered if they were wasting their time being out in the woods late at night, without even knowing what they were supposed to be looking for. They came nowhere near Sheriff Stilinski and his deputies, which Scott was thankful for, but they still hadn’t found anything despite all the ground they had covered. Scott was considering calling it a night, they all had to sleep at some point.

Everyone followed her eyes where she was looking. There was something luminous moving in the distance that could only be seen in the gaps between the trees.

Malia started but paused when she heard Scott speak.

“Liam, where are the officers?” Scott asked calmly.

“Way off to our left and behind us.”

At that, Malia took off like a shot, sprinting after the luminous form. Scott and Liam were fast on her heels while Kira was at the back of the group.

“Be careful!” Scott shouted after Malia as she pulled further ahead. He hoped the deputies didn’t hear them.

Malia bolted through the woods as only one who lived as a predatory animal for most of their lives could. Her speed meant she almost immediately left her friends far behind. Scott and Liam lost sight of her as she ran off and stopped to catch their breath. Kira jogged over to join them, almost entirely winded.

“This is what I get for skipping the mile run in PE,” she said as she tried to breathe.

Scott laughed hoarsely in between gulps of air.

“Where are the deputies now?” Scott asked.

Liam looked as his phone, which he never put in his pocket before running and which was grasped so tightly in his fist from fear of dropping it that his knuckles were white.

“Way behind us.”

“Good. Malia!” Scott yelled, hoping again that Sherriff Stiles’ men wouldn’t hear.

Malia didn’t respond and the three friends stood around looking in different directions trying to see anything of their friend. After a few minutes Malia ran over from a cluster of trees different than the one she had run off into.

“Sorry, guys,” she said as she stopped and put her hands on her knees to rest a second.

“Didn’t catch it?” Scott asked.

Malia stood up straight again, exhausted but recovering quickly.

“No. It was way too fast.”

“What did it look like?” Liam asked.

“I’m not sure. I thought it looked like an animal but it was so hard to keep up with it and think critically at the same time.”

“Did you catch its scent at least?”

“No. I think the wind was at my back the whole time.”

Kira looked at Scott and Liam who were nodding.

“What does that mean?”

Malia looked at Kira, bewildered, before understanding.

“Oh, yeah, you don’t do anything by smell. It means the huldra was downwind from me, like, the wind was blowing towards them instead of towards me, so I couldn’t smell it at all.”

Kira nodded.

“What a waste,” Liam said as he kicked some leaves.

“No, we know it’s still in these woods somewhere,” Scott corrected. He refused to be jarred by a dead body and a fast creature.

His friends, however, were not so stalwart.

“We probably scared it away by following it,” Liam added.

Malia nodded wordlessly.

Kira shrugged, “Who even knows if we’ll find it again?”

Scott looked at his pack and realized that they weren’t sounding so defeated because they honestly believed the search was pointless, they were just tired and dejected by the lack of information and creature-finding. This was their way of telling him they wanted to go home without having to say out loud that they were throwing in the towel for the night before anyone else admitted it. Scott figured that more than one night without going to sleep at a normal hour could do that to a person.

“You know what?” Scott said as he surveyed his troops. “Let’s call it a night. We’ll have to come back and try again tomorrow night.”

“Cool,” Kira said, “I have to pee.”

Scott turned to leave and everyone followed him, quietly grateful. Liam was practically dragging his feet, he was so tired.

“Does it have to be tomorrow?” Malia asked.

Scott turned to her as he walked.

“Why?”

“I sort of invited Stiles and Lydia to see the band I saw last night. You can all come too if you want.”

“Don’t you think this might be more important?”

“Well, to be honest I thought we might find it tonight… Okay. I didn’t really think it through. But what if we scared it off? It probably won’t be here tomorrow anyway, right? I wouldn’t come back if I were it, I’d go somewhere else.”

“You’re just saying that because you want to see the band again,” Liam said with a laugh.

“Yes and no,” Malia admitted.

“Yes and no?” Kira asked skeptically.

“It can’t be both?”

Scott laughed. “I know you’re probably mostly arguing your position because you want to see the band again, but you are right. We’ll take a break tomorrow and come back the night after.”

“See?” Malia said, validated, “Yes and no.”

Scott smiled to himself and shook his head as he walked.

“Liam, how far are we away from the car?”

Liam looked at his phone and dragged his finger across the screen looking for their origin point.

“Um, pretty far.”

Everyone groaned and kept walking.


	3. The Siren in Titan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> he search has been slowed by a lack of information but our intrepid heroes press on anyway. For now they think they might lure their prey into a false sense of security by doing what Malia wants to do:
> 
> Going to a concert.
> 
> Here comes the OC.
> 
> Word count: 4,071  
> Edited: 15 July 2018

Stiles lazed across his bed as he reviewed his art history flashcards on the SRS app. He studied the screen with a look of intense concentration, occasionally realizing it was way to close to his face and moving it further away. Some of the concepts and artists were getting easier, but he was still having trouble with remembering specific details about paintings.

Such as ‘who painted what.’

_Sandro Botticelli was an Italian Renaissance painter who lived from 1445 to 1510, and he painted… shit. SHIT._

He swiped at the screen and flipped the card over in the app.

_The Birth of Venus, Primavera, Adoration of the Magi, Mars and Venus. Son of a bitch._

He leaned his arm across his face for a moment and sighed deeply. Resolving to conquer this beast called ‘Art History,’ he continued his review. There was something deeply boring, he thought, about just looking at flashcards over and over.

_Maybe there’s a flashcard app that will let me make a matching game with the artists and paintings?_

He opened the app store for a moment before admonishing himself and reminding himself not to get distracted. The phone pinged at the completion of the card set. Stiles watched as his success rate unfolded on the screen. He furrowed his brow for a moment before relaxing his features. He put his phone on his stomach and rested his hands on his head, closing his eyes.

He lay there for a few moments before he heard a knock at the door.

“It’s open,” Stiles said, opening his eyes.

Malia opened the door. “Hey, ready to go?”

Stiles sat up so he could see her better. She had clearly decided to look more the part of a listener of metal and wore high-waisted black pants with silver studs on them and a cropped shirt with a band logo he didn’t recognize.

Stiles chuckled, “Wow, you kind of look like a biker chick.”

Malia looked down at her clothes. “Is that bad?”

“No, it’s a good look for you. I feel really under-dressed now though.”

“No one’s going to be looking at our clothes anyway.”

“Then why you’d get dressed up?” Stiles asked pointedly.

“I don’t know. For fun I guess. Marcy sent me a video about how to stud clothing so I studded these pants.”

“Marcy?”

“My Chem lab partner. Come on, everyone’s in the car.”

Stiles stood, grabbing his phone, wallet, and keys and shoved them all in his pocket as he followed Malia out the door.

* * *

Lydia parked her car on the street down the road from the club and everyone piled out. Malia, Kira, and Lydia all looked the part, wearing darker attire, more appropriate for a metal concert. Scott and Stiles, however, looked a little out of place wearing what they normally wore.

Malia led the way to the venue.

“I love those pants, Lydia,” Kira said.

“Thank you. I’ve been waiting for an excuse to wear them.”

“Are they oxblood red?”

Lydia grinned, “Yes they are.”

Kira shook her head, “You don’t see that color in stores. Such a shame.”

“I know. My mom bought them in the 80’s”

“Please tell me it was a hair metal phase.”

Lydia smiled. “It was a hair metal phase.”

Kira laughed at the thought. “I have to show you what my mom looked like in the 70s. She had a permed afro and everything.”

“NO.”

“I think she tried to get rid of the pictures but I know my dad hid some.”

“Oh my god. I’ll bring a picture of my mom over one day and we can cringe together,” Lydia said, laughing.

When they reached the door of the club, Titan, Malia said hi to the bouncer who smiled and asked them for their IDs. Being a 16 and up club, they were all gifted with a large X on the back of their right hand to show that they weren’t old enough to drink and were let inside.

Malia craned her neck to see the stage and saw that the roadies were still setting up. She smiled, happy that they didn’t miss anything, and turned to Stiles. “What time is it?”

Stiles looked at his watch, “9:50.”

“The band I liked last time should be coming on next.”

“I guess we can hang out until then,” Scott said. “Mingle, maybe?”

Stiles answered his suggestion by raising an eyebrow.

A burly, bearded man with a drink in his hand brushed by Kira and stopped to look at her shirt.

“Hey, Babymetal! Nice shirt!” He said excitedly and held up his hand for a high five.

Kira, at first taken aback by the stranger’s reaction, smiled and high fived him. “Thanks!”

The guy walked away smiling as he made his way over to a group of people by the bar.

Everyone looked at Kira.

“What?”

Scott decided to say it first, “…I don’t know what ‘Babymetal’ is.”

“Yeah, I don’t understand why that guy was so happy about it,” Stiles added.

“You have phones,” Kira pointed out. “Google it.”

Lydia laughed and Malia smiled.

“Do you know what it is?” Stiles asked.

Malia shrugged, “No.”

“Then why are you laughing?”

“It’s funny.”

“I know what it is, but I don’t listen to them.” Lydia answered.

“What is it?” Scott asked.

Lydia looked to Kira for permission and was met with raised eyebrows and hands on hips.

“You heard your girlfriend, look it up.”

Scott opened his mouth to respond when the band, minus the singer, came out onto the stage and the crowd screamed. The audience crammed itself tighter together as each person tried to vie for the best spot, right in front of the stage. Malia led the group to a quieter, less crowded spot at the back.

“This spot is good!” Malia shouted over the last-minute preparations of the band. “It’s far back but you can see the whole venue!”

“Yeah,” Lydia agreed as she observed the view, “nice choice.”

Malia smiled.

The crowd buzzed with excitement as the musicians finished their last-minute adjustments. They erupted into the cheers and screaming a second time when the singer walked out onto the stage.

“How is everyone doing tonight?” The lead guitarist asked, prompting another round of screams to erupt from the crowd.

“Good, good. I’m feeling quite 'ahh!’ myself.”

The crowd laughed in response and the lead guitarist chuckled into the mic. The singer smiled almost imperceptibly, light eyes visible in a sea of black and red makeup.

“We’re Sister of Ash, but I’m sure most of you know that already.”

The crowd screamed in approval.

“Doesn’t the singer generally do the talking?” Stiles asked.

“The guitarist spoke last time,” Malia replied with a shrug.

“Weird.”

The singer turned around and wordlessly counted off to the band. The first song blared into existence all melodic guitars, thundering drums, and rhythmically thrumming bass, and was quickly joined by the raspy growl of the singer. The singer gestured along with the song and raised a fist for emphasis. At moments the whole band was head banging and at others they were remarkably stoic despite the cacophony they created. The lead guitarist in particular seemed to have a gaggle of women at his end of the stage who screamed at every flip of his hair and every time he smiled at them. Scott gestured to Stiles to watch the women react and they smiled in appreciation. Kira noticed this and nudged Lydia to make her look at the screaming women as well and they shared a smile at how silly they thought it was.

Malia bounced on the balls of her feet and nodded her head to the music. Now that she was somewhat accustomed to the songs she could follow them easier and was thoroughly enjoying them. She turned to Stiles and raised her eyebrows in silent questioning.

“It’s loud,” he shouted.

“Isn’t it great?” Malia shouted back.

Stiles smiled and shrugged.

“Do you feel panicky at all?”

“No. It’s loud but it feels fine.”

Malia smiled and held Stiles’ hand, then went back to listening to the music. Stiles followed suit.

Kira nudged Scott with the same look of questioning that Malia had just given Stiles, to which he smiled and shrugged. Both decided it was best to go back to listening to the music.

Lydia, too, was listening, but not to the music. There was something else that was making its way to her ears through the din and static of electronic guitars and amplifiers. She tried to separate it out in her mind, a sound that was under everything else, almost hidden. A look of serious concern washed over her face and her brow furrowed as she concentrated.

Scott saw this out of the corner of his eye and leaned over Kira to check on her.

“You okay?”

Kira turned and looked at Lydia’s expression, the same expression as when she was trying to locate the body.

Lydia turned her head so one ear completely faced the band in an attempt to hear better. She covered her other ear with her hand. “I just feel like I’m hearing something, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

“What do you mean?”

She took her hand off her ear and leaned towards Scott. “Like, I’m hearing something that isn’t there… I don’t know.”

Scott turned to Stiles, “Lydia says she hears something.”

“Like what?”

“She’s not sure. Just stay alert.”

Stiles nodded and relayed the message to Malia, who had to stop nodding to the music momentarily to listen to him, and then went right back to listening to the band.

The band got through a few mores songs before the singer paused on stage and appeared to be looking at something happening in the audience. They waved for the music to stop.

“Hey, hey you,” the singer said to someone as they pointed into the crowd.

“The singer is a girl?” Stiles asked in disbelief.

“I think 'woman’ would be more appropriate, given how her voice sounds,” Kira interjected as she stood on her toes and tried to discern what had gotten the singer’s attention.

“I didn’t know women could sing like that,” Stiles said to Scott, who shrugged.

The singer continued trying to get the attention of a concert-goer.

“Guy. No, not you. The guy who’s trying to put his hands up a girl’s shirt and she’s telling you no? I see you. Leave her alone.”

The guy yelled something inaudible.

Scott’s expression turned to shock.

“What’d he say?” Kira asked.

“He’s swearing at her, and probably drunk.”

“Oh really?” The singer shot back rudely. “Didn’t your parents ever tell you that no means no?”

The guy yelled again and the crowd began to boo him. The singer crouched and said something to the bouncer standing in front of the stage who waved to a bouncer at the side of the crowd. The second bouncer weaved his way into the crowd effortlessly as people parted before him.

The guy yelled at the singer again.

The singer laughed maliciously.

“I’d invite you to come up here and try but I think I’ll have security remove you instead.”

As the bouncer made his way over to the guy, the guy attempted to talk him into letting him stay. The bouncer attempted to usher him out, to which the man began to get violent.

The girl stood behind the bouncer with her arms folded over her breasts, clearly trying to protect herself.

The singer spoke again.

“Girl, I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

The girl turned around and the singer motioned to her to come to the stage. The girl made her way to the front where the singer knelt to talk to her.

Stiles turned to Scott, “What are they saying?”

“She’s asking her if she knew the guy… and the girl said no… Now she’s asking her if she’d want to stay by the side of the stage so she can keep an eye on her… and she said yes.”

“That’s so nice of her,” Kira said with a slight smile. “What a cool person.”

The guy yelled something inaudible.

“What did he–”

“I’m not repeating it.”

The singer stood and bellowed into the microphone, “No one is speaking to you! You are disrespectful and disgusting! Remove him!”

The bouncer grabbed the guy by his shirt and roughly escorted him out of the venue to everyone’s applause.

“We’re here to play a show,” the singer continued. “I shouldn’t have to stop to take care of creepy guys because they don’t know how to keep their hands to themselves.”

The crowd cheered again.

“If I see it again, I’m ending the set.”

The singer turned around and counted off to the band and they restarted the song she interrupted.

Lydia, who was listening intently the whole time, turned to Scott.

“That noise I wasn’t sure I was hearing?” She shouted to him over the music.

“Yeah?”

“I think it’s the singer.”

Scott looked at Lydia wide-eyed and then looked at the singer who was gutturally screaming the words to the song as everyone jumped and moshed. He wondered why her singing didn’t seem to be doing anything to the crowd except let them have a good time. Then he wondered what she looked like without the makeup on.

He turned to Stiles, “We have to get backstage.”

Before Stiles could answer, Malia shouted to Scott, “I can do that.”

Stiles turned to face her, his expression confused but impressed, “How?”

“I talked to the bouncer who stands at the backstage door the other day. He’s nice.”

“When did you become a social butterfly?”

“I’m still a coyote.”

“I– never mind.”

Scott put his hand on Malia’s arm to get her attention.

“After the show ends.”

“Okay.”

Malia went back to nodding her head to the music while Scott and Stiles shared an impressed glance.

* * *

After the band finished playing Malia talked to the bouncer who blocked the entrance to the backstage area. He was happy to see Malia again and more than happy to let them backstage to talk to the band. Stiles wondered what they could have possibly bonded over that he seemed to be her buddy after a day.

The group followed Malia down the hall that ran behind the stage and all ducked behind an amplifier when she ducked. Confused, they all tried to sneak a peek at what Malia had seen that made her hide and saw two women speaking.

“I just wanted to thank you,” the younger of the two women said.

“It wasn’t a problem. I don’t like men who seem to think that everything is theirs,” said the elder.

The group now understood that this was the singer and the girl she saved from a bad situation. The singer had washed her makeup off, though she still had rings of reddish black makeup around her eyes that now looked like day-old eyeliner. The younger woman was clearly nervous, shifting her weight on her feet periodically as she tried to appear cool.

“Funny,” the girl said, “I just don’t like men.”

The singer smiled, causing the girl to laugh nervously.

“I uh… I was actually hoping I would get to meet you,” the girl admitted.

“Were you now?”

“Yeah… I mean, I had hoped it would be under better circumstances though. I’ve been a fan of yours for a while. I… I really admire you.”

“That means a lot, thank you.”

“Really?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t it?”

The girl couldn’t help but wring her hands

The two stood in silence for a moment as the singer waited for the girl to speak.

“Could I, um… could I kiss you?”

“You want to kiss me?“ The singer asked. She seemed shocked.

“Um, yes?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, maybe some of your coolness will rub off on me?”

The singer moved to answer, but the girl kept talking.

“You’re just really pretty, and you’re such a talented songwriter, and you have great stage presence, and your music just does things to me, and I’ve been such a big fan of yours for so long – even when you had your other bands – and you even saved me from that guy and just… I just really like you.”

The singer smiled sweetly as the girl’s effusive praise spilled out of her lips, permeating the air with her admiration. The girl suddenly clammed her mouth shut after admitting her crush, causing the singer’s smile to broaden. The singer tilted her head in silent reflection for a moment as the girl shifted, looking like she wished she could run away.

Having been in many of such an awkward situation, Stiles found himself empathizing with the girl.

The singer took the girl’s hands to stop them from shaking, brought her closer, and kissed her softly on the lips. As she pulled away, the lead guitarist walked over with a raised eyebrow and a smile.

“This is Brian,” the singer said as she gestured to the guitarist.

“Nice, to meet you,” Brian said as he held out his hand.

The girl blushed bright red as she shook it.

“What is your name, by the way? You never told me.”

The girl gasped, “Oh! I didn’t—I’m sorry!”

“That’s fine, there’s still time to tell me now,” the singer reassured her.

“It’s Ana.”

“Well, Ana, how did you get here tonight?”

“The bus.”

“I’d like it if Brian drove you home. I wouldn’t want you to chance meeting that guy again while you’re alone.”

“Why don’t you drive me home?”

“I’d like to but I can’t, I have to pack up the gear and Brian never helps anyway.”

“Not if I can help it,” Brian said as he folded his arms across his chest.

“At least now you’ll have something to do for the time being,” the singer countered with a skeptical eyebrow raise.

Brian narrowed his eyes and flashed the singer a wry grin.

The singer turned back to Ana, “I’d rather Brian took you home.”

“Okay,” Ana said sadly.

“Make sure she gets home safe,” the singer said.

Brian nodded and walked to the back door of the venue, opened it and gestured to Ana.

“After you.”

Ana waved goodbye to the singer and walked through the door, Brian closed it behind them.

The singer sighed and shook her head and then turned to a pile of equipment and began organizing cords, coiling them up carefully and tying them off before organizing them into piles.

Malia walked out from behind cover with her friends following her and walked over.

“Hey.”

“Field trip get lost?” the singer said flatly as she surveyed the group of teenagers before her.

"What?”

“Who are you?”

“Oh, I’m Malia, this is Stiles, Scott, Lydia, and Kira,” Malia gestured to each person as she named them.

The singer seemed bemused by this and smiled, setting down the cord she was working on. “Well, Malia, Scott, Stiles, Lydia, and Kira, I hope you enjoyed the show.”

“I really liked it,” Malia said and smiled widely.

“I’m glad. But why are you back here?”

“We needed to ask you something,” Scott interjected.

“Shoot,” the singer said as she folded her arms.

“Well…” Scott trailed off as he looked for the right words. “I guess there’s no better way to know then to just ask it. Do you know what a Huldra is?”

The singer’s eyes widened and her arms fell to her sides in shock.

“Why are you asking me that?”

“Because we think you might be one.”

“And why would you think that?” the singer asked through her teeth.

“Well, Lydia here is a banshee and she can hear it in your voice.”

The singer’s nostrils flared as she looked Lydia up and down. “Goddamn banshees.”

“Hey,” Lydia said with a frown.

“It’s always the same, isn’t it? I find a nice place to live and one of your kind always rats me out and I get driven out.”

“What, like with pitchforks and torches?” Stiles asked with a laugh.

“A few times,” the singer shot back with narrowed eyes.

Stiles was taken aback. He thought he was making a joke.

“So it’s not because you kill people?” Scott asked.

“Excuse me?”

“We found a body in the woods,” Stiles explained. “It was mutilated.”

“And what does that have to do with me?”

“I heard singing when we found the body. We have a bestiary of all types of people like us,” Lydia said matter-of-factly. “You were the best fit.”

The singer glared at her, “So your book says that I mutilate people?”

“No…” Scott began. “But it said that people might offer their blood to you for protection and—“

The singer laughed loudly, “I haven’t heard that in a long time!”

Scott and his friends looked at each other, confused.

“Listen kiddies, I haven’t eaten people in a long time, and if I did, it sure as hell wouldn’t look like a mutilated guy in the woods. That blood thing is completely wrong and I’m sure the rest of that book is full of erroneous bullshit when it comes to me.”

“So where did the blood thing come from?” Stiles asked out of genuine curiosity.

“Would you believe that I had a Goth phase?”

Stiles couldn’t tell whether she was joking or not.

“So we’re just supposed to believe that?” Scott asked, almost angrily.

“Do whatever you like.”

Scott hushed his voice and took a step closer to the singer. “Someone killed a man and ripped his face off, and we’re just supposed to believe that it wasn’t you?”

The singer took a step closer as well, “There’s no reason for you not to believe me. You don’t know me.”

“Her heartbeat doesn’t sound like she’s lying,” Malia offered matter-of-factly.

“Probably because I’m not,” the singer said angrily, not to Malia, but to Scott.

Scott viewed the singer as he also listened to her heartbeat. Her heart had sped up slightly and then slowed back down, nothing out of the ordinary with someone who was as annoyed as she currently seemed to be. Her gaze was leveled right into his as she fumed silently. He wondered if she really was telling the truth or if she was just trying to get out of whatever comeuppance she might think he and his friends had for her.

“Maybe there’s something else in the book that’s a better fit?” Malia said, trying to help.

“Or maybe what we’re looking for isn’t in the book at all,” Lydia stated.

“I didn’t even think of that,” Scott said as he backed away from the singer. “We’ve been using it for everything. But Deaton did warn me that it might have blind spots.”

The singer folded her arms but kept her expression.

“It’s a fairly small book, Scott,” Lydia continued. “And it’s really just the beings that the Argents have run into over the years.”

“Maybe Mason has something in that German book he bought,” Stiles pointed out.

“Maybe,” Lydia replied with a sigh.

Scott turned back to the singer who had been viewing them skeptically while they discussed the possibility of having made a mistake.

“We don’t know that it was you, and we don’t know that it wasn’t you. I’m not going to rule you out though, so don’t skip town.”

“As long as your banshee keeps her mouth shut about me, I won’t have to leave.”

“I can keep an eye on her,” Malia offered. “I like coming here anyway.”

“I’m touched,” the singer smiled toothily. “And to prove that you’re definitely wrong, I’ll have you put down as VIP so you don’t have to pay anything. Or rather, I’ll pay for your ticket since this place is such a dive it doesn’t actually have VIP. You can claim it when you get here.”

“Wow, thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

When does the place open?”

“Seven.”

“Is it okay if I show up then?”

“Fine by me.”

“Cool. Do I have to tell them I know you or something? I don’t even know your name.”

“Yeah, you didn’t even ask me my name before you started hurling accusations.”

“Sorry…” Scott said.

“It’s Val.”

“Oh, like Valerie?” Kira asked.

“Like Valerie, but not. Just call me Val.”

“Well, Val,” Scott interjected. “I hope this thing isn’t you.”

“You’ll realize soon that it isn’t.”

“Let’s hope so.”


	4. Someone to Watch Over Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why are huldras so maligned? And why can’t the gang make any progress on finding the killer?
> 
> At least one of those questions is answered…
> 
> Word count: 2,729  
> Edited: 15 July 2018

The following night, Scott, Kira, and Liam were all out looking for - whatever it was they were looking for - none of them were really sure and even Scott had to stop himself from wondering if they were wasting their time.

As they did the first night they searched the woods, they kept their eyes aglow, looking for anything that could be the luminescent inner identity of a supernatural being. There was no longer the threat of the sheriff’s men as there was the last time they searched the woods, so Scott was at least thankful for that. Periodically Liam would tell the group to change direction, as they were trying to survey as much of the forest as they could before they had to leave to get some rest before school the next day. Kira was having a hard time deciding if she hated that they were taking so long to comb the woods, or that she liked that nothing had been spotted so she didn’t have to do any running.

Scott, Kira, and Liam were all out looking for _something_ while Malia was at Titan watching over Val.

Val had given Malia a backstage pass so she could move around the venue as she pleased. Malia took her pass very seriously – to Val’s confusion and amusement – and was determined to blend in as ‘someone who actually belonged there.’ To this end, she helped Val set up equipment. Val didn’t mind her help as her chronically lazy lead guitarist, Brian, lounged on one of the sofas backstage. Texting whichever fangirl had found out his phone number this week, no doubt.

“So, if the bestiary said that anytime you sing it hypnotizes people, how is it that you can sing in a band and not have an effect?” Malia asked quietly as she and Val worked together.

“Is this where you try to get information from me to report back to your little friends?” Val asked without looking up from what she was doing.

“No, I was just curious. It confuses me.”

Val looked at Malia for a moment, trying to discern her motive. She rolled her eyes and sighed, “Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but the noise I’m making isn’t generally considered ‘singing’.” She made air quotes as she emphasized the last word in the sentence.

“So because people don’t think it’s singing, that means it doesn’t work? Everyone likes it though.”

“Not everyone,” Val scoffed.

“What?”

“What I mean is… it’s not melodious. It’s a small variety of notes, and they aren’t held for very long. I think that’s why it doesn’t do anything for anyone on the hypnotism front.”

“Lydia knew what you were.”

“Yeah, it seems to be something only banshees pick up on when I make any kind of verbal noise. She probably hears it when I’m speaking normally as well.”

“I wonder why.”

“My guess was always that they hear things other than what people normally hear. Probably something to do with the whole ‘harbinger of death’ thing.”

“That makes sense.”

“I kind of hate banshees though—“

The drummer – who Malia learned earlier in the evening was named Shaun – walked over, startling Malia.

“What are you guys talking about?”

“Tabletop RPG,” Val replied without missing a beat. “The Banshee class is totally OP.”

Shaun looked from Val to Malia and back. Val guessed that he was probably trying to reconcile his impression of her as the badass frontwoman with a hobby he likely found _extremely_ nerdy.

“…Oh…” Shaun said and walked away.

Val moved closer to Malia and spoke in a more hushed manner. “Every single time I got comfortable where I was, one would find me and tell everyone in the village or town, and I’d have to bail and find another place to live.”

“Why did they tell other people about you? Lydia’s never told anyone about me, or any of our other friends.”

“The myths that surround me make even other supernatural people wary. You know about the singing, I’m sure your book said what I’m supposed to do afterward.”

“It said your song pulls men into the forest –“

Val chuckled, “Not always men, but continue.”

“And you either wed them—“

Val held up her left hand and showed Malia that her ring finger was bare. “Unlikely.”

“…Or devour them.”

Val leveled her gaze at Malia. She felt her point had been proven. “Now you know why people don’t like me.”

* * *

Scott, Kira, and Liam trudged through the forest as they each wondered what the creature they were looking for could be. Kira was beginning to wish that she had volunteered to stay at the club, while Liam was wishing they would find the creature again. _When I see it, I’m going to run after it so fast, and then we’ll have it and no one else will die, and I can actually sleep on a school night._ Scott busied himself by wondering if they were making a mistake in not asking Stiles’ dad to lock Val up, at least until they could be sure if she was the killer or not.

Scott’s thoughts were interrupted by the ring of his phone. He answered it and put it on speaker.

“What’d you find?”

“We’ve been going through the bestiary and trying to find something that kills with the same M.O. as whoever killed that guy,” Lydia began. “There are a few who dismember, a few that drain blood, a few that 'rip to shreds’, but none that explain why I heard singing where the body was found or why the creature felt the need to take his jaw with them.”

“Do we even know who this guy is?” Liam asked.

“Not yet,” Stiles replied. “He didn’t have anything in his pockets and his remaining teeth don’t match any dental records the Sheriff’s office has.”

“They still use dental records?” Scott asked.

“Sometimes. There’s no missing person’s report of someone matching his height, projected weight, and hair color, so they’re still looking.”

Kira made a sad face, “Poor guy.”

Scott and Liam nodded.

“Are they checking from the next towns over? Maybe he’s not from Beacon Hills.”

“They are. My dad’s the Sheriff, Scott. He knows what he’s doing.”

“Sorry, I’m just worried.”

“I know, buddy.”

“Since the bestiary doesn’t have anything, we called Mason over and he brought the book he has,” Lydia said.

“Hi guys,” Mason said, “My book doesn’t have much of anything aside from werewolves, so I suggested we look for an online book repository.”

“We found two books in Medieval French,” Lydia continued, “one in German, Renaissance Italian, Ancient Swedish, Ancient Norwegian, Urdu, Ancient Greek… There’s more but I’m not going to name them all, we found a ton of books about creatures and folklore from all different places and they’re all really old.”

“I was actually going to run over to an office supply store and get more paper and ink so we could print all of them out,” Stiles added.

“Yeah, I’m not going to translate them all, I don’t even speak Urdu so I’ll just have to learn a little and wing it, but we’re going to try to leaf through as much as we can so we can hopefully find something.” Lydia finished.

“Okay, I think we’ll stay out here a little longer to see if we can spot that thing again but we’ll probably be back to help soon,” Scott said as he looked around the woods. He too, was starting to get tired of looking for nothing, but if their being in the woods at least drove the creature away so it couldn’t kill again, that was good enough for him.

“Okay, bye guys.”

Scott hung up and put his phone back in his pocket. Kira and Liam looked at him expectantly.

“I think what we’ll do is, look around a bit more, text Malia to see how she is at the venue, and then head back to Stiles’ to see if we can help them.”

“I can at least read any Japanese books they found,” Kira offered. “I mean, hopefully. I’ve been learning Japanese, but if the book is too old I may not be able to read it.”

‘I… can’t read anything except English,” Liam said with a shrug.

Scott smiled, “I’m sure we can all help Lydia somehow. Come on.”

* * *

A while later Malia stood at the side of the stage backstage and was nodding along to the music as Val’s band played. Despite the vibrations through the stage itself, she felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She took it out and read the text.

Scott: Is she still there?

Malia: Yeah, they’re playing rn

Scott: We’re probably going to meet you earlier than expected. We haven’t seen the creature or any unusual tracks or anything out here.

Malia: Okay.

Scott: Also, Lydia found a bunch of bestiaries and folklore books in other languages, so we’ll pick you up and then see if we can help her at all. Maybe we can find what we’re looking for in one of the books.

Scott: Or find an easier way to find it.

Malia: Okay, see you later.

Scott: I’ll text you when we get there.

Malia put her phone away and went back to nodding to the music. She looked out into the crowd and noticed the girl from the night before in the audience, dancing and jumping around. She smiled. She was glad she was able to enjoy the show without being bothered this time. 

* * *

After the show ended, Malia was helping Val put things away backstage when Scott and everyone else walked over.

Val noticed them first and turned to Malia, “Baby sitter, are you going to tell daddy I was a good girl tonight?”

Scott’s face was one of confusion. Kira was massively uncomfortable and wasn’t sure why. Liam had never met Val before, so he couldn’t tell if she was angry or what.

“Both of us were here the entire time,” Malia said.

Scott stammered, “Uh, yeah. We didn’t find anything in the woods.” He turned to Val, “So you’re not off the hook yet.”

Scott’s warning was met with an exaggerated eye roll and elongated sigh from Val. She longed to go back to her life of playing shows and being mostly alone, or at least, not being followed around by annoying teenagers. But at least he hadn’t tried to get her arrested.

He continued, “We have to help Lydia find something that hunts in the same way as the creature that killed that guy, do you want to help us?”

Val was taken aback but hid it.

“I’d much rather go home and shower,” she responded flatly.

“What are you going to do after that?” Malia asked. “Go to any cool parties?”

Val looked at her blankly. This is why she didn’t associate with people who weren’t her own age, or at least closer.

“I was going to go to sleep. I’m tired.”

Malia looked a little sad, “Oh.”

Scott thought for a second, “Malia, I’m not going to send you home with her, but do you want to hang out here tomorrow night?”

“Sure!” Malia said without hesitation.

Val chuckled to herself. At least she would have less setting up or putting away the equipment since Brian, who was currently sitting at the bar with several fangirls, was clearly no help.

Scott finished his train of thought, “Tomorrow, you stay here, we’ll go out again, and we’ll see what happens. Maybe our being in the woods consistently will at least prevent another death.”

“I’m pretty sure we’ve scared it away,” Liam stated.

“We still have to try,” Scott replied.

Liam nodded reluctantly.

“Ready to go Malia?”

“Sure.” Malia handed the cords she was busy winding up to Val, “Sorry I couldn’t finish helping you pack up.”

“That’s fine,” Val said as she gave a tired smile. “See you tomorrow, shadow.”

At Stiles’ house, in Stiles’ room, the whole group was leafing through pages and pages of bestiaries and various languages in order to help Lydia find something, anything, faster. Before Scott and his group returned from picking up Malia, Lydia had made word lists for each book she gave her friends, so the person looking at that book could possibly find something without actually having to know the language. She would eventually go through them all on her own, which would then be easier for her because hopefully the reader of the book would have circled the words she needed to hone in on.

Kira put her pen down and rubbed her eyes.

“I feel like I’m playing a really crappy version of Where’s Waldo. Except instead of looking for a happy man with silly fashion sense, I feel like I’m looking for words I can’t read in a language I can’t understand—oh no wait, that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

Everyone laughed tiredly.

“I know what you mean,” Mason chimed in, “I never realized how much I could hate something as simple verb tenses.”

A sudden snore got everyone’s attention. Liam was sitting against the bed, his head tilted back, completely asleep. Kira and Mason looked at one another and Mason kicked Liam’s foot. Liam snorted as he woke up, disoriented.

“Wha? Wha?” he mumbled as he looked around the room.

“Dude,” Mason said as he looked at him disapprovingly.

“What? This is tiring. I’m tired. Isn’t it one in the morning or something?”

Mason looked at his watch, “Two-thirty-three.”

Liam groaned and laid his head back on the mattress and whined, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Stiles raised an eyebrow at Scott.

Lydia yawned, “How much have you guys finished?”

Kira held up the two Japanese books she was given and part of the third. Mason held up his German manuscripts and part of his French one. Scott and Stiles’ both held up a completed manuscript each, Spanish and Italian, respectively. Malia held up the Arabic and Sanskrit books she was given, and Liam held up part of the Swedish book he still hadn’t finished yet.

“That looks like a good amount,” Lydia said sleepily. “Put them all in a pile and I’ll take them home. I have to get some sleep.”

Everyone amassed their printouts and handed them to Lydia.

“Tomorrow is going to be an espresso kind of morning,” she mumbled to herself as she put everything in her bag.

Mason stood and yawned, “Could you drive me home? I think my ride is too sleepy to drive tonight.”

The both of them turned to see Liam once again asleep against Stiles’ bed.

“Sure, come on.” Lydia turned to everyone else, “Bye guys.”

“Bye,” Mason echoed.

Scott rubbed his eyes to try and wake himself up and turned to Kira, “We should probably go too. I’ll drive you home.”

* * *

“Mhm,” Kira answered and stood, trying to pull her jacket on but only confusing herself as to where her second sleeve was. Scott walked over and fixed it for her, helping her pull her jacket on.

“Thanks”

“Bye,” Scott said as he turned to Stiles and Malia.

“See ya.”

Stiles heard the front door close and hoped it wasn’t loud enough to wake his dad. He turned to Liam who was again passed out, leaning against the bed. He tried to wake him.

“Liam,” he said as he shook his shoulder. “Liam.”

Liam woke and squinted at Stiles, “Huh?”

“You can sleep here if you want buddy, but you can’t stay in my room.”

“Why not? I can sleep in the bed,” Liam said, congested with sleep.

“…No, I’m going to sleep in the bed. It’s my bed.”

“Oh.”

“Go downstairs and sleep in the living room.”

“I can stay?”

“Yeah, sleep on the couch downstairs.”

Stiles pulled Liam up off the floor and led him to the door.

“When you get downstairs make a right and that’s the living room, okay buddy?”

“Okay.”

Malia smiled as she watched a sleepy Liam shuffle out of the room.

Stiles turned around to face her, happy they finally had his room to themselves.

Malia smiled impishly, “Can I sleep in your bed?”

“No, go sleep in the living room. On the floor.”

Malia feigned shock.

Stiles laughed and put his arms around her. “Nah, you can always sleep in my bed.”


	5. Return to the Soil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone does their own thing until they realize they might have a way to catch the killer.
> 
> Coyotes will be coyotes, I guess.
> 
> (When you imagine what Val's actual singing voice sounds like, I was thinking something like Chelsea Wolfe's The Warden. Just... haunting. Gorgeous and a little creepy.)
> 
> Word count: 3,885  
> Edited: 15 July 2018

Lydia poured tea for herself. She held the mug in her hand and inhaled deeply, it was an interesting blend that Kira brought back from a small tea shop when she was visiting friends in New York during the summer. Fruity and spicy, she mentally bathed in the scent as she tried to prepare herself for a long night of reading and notetaking. She was exhausted from staying up so late the night before and she still had to go through the second half of books everyone finished. She sipped her tea and sat back down on her bed, surrounded by papers. She picked up the next printed book in the pile and began looking for the words her friends had circled.

* * *

Scott, Kira, and Liam again patrolled the woods. They had covered a lot of land the night before and were now exploring a new area north of their previous excursion. Their glowing eyes might have startled someone, but fortunately they were completely alone. Kira and Liam were both a little tired of the nighttime woodland walks that had become a sudden constant of their lives. Scott still felt that patrolling was better than staying home and possibly risking another person dying.

* * *

Stiles had accompanied Malia to Titan as she watched over Val. He tried to help unpack the gear, spurring Brian to come over and take a guitar out of his hands with the expression of a parent taking their baby from the hands of someone they didn’t trust. After that, Stiles didn’t help much and only carried what Malia told him to carry.

Malia decided that, since Stiles was with her, they could watch the concert like people who were there to see the band play, instead of people who were stalking one of its members. Malia was happy to be there regardless of her real reason and bounced around to the music.

Stiles leaned into her ear, “Enjoying yourself?”

“Yeah,” Malia smiled.

“You’re not tired of it yet?”

“No, why?”

“This is like the fourth time you’ve seen their show, you must have heard all their songs by now.”

“I like them. And it’s not like they don’t have different songs each time.”

“I… I can’t tell the difference.”

“You’re not listening.”

“But you’re not tired of hearing the songs already?”

“No. They’re good.”

Malia turned her attention back to the show, ending their conversation.

Stiles shrugged to himself.

* * *

After the show ended, Malia headed backstage with Stiles in tow.

“Hi, Vinny,” she said as she smiled to the very large bouncer.

“Hey, Mal. Have fun tonight?”

“Of course. Why weren’t you here yesterday?”

“My car got a flat and I had to change it. Boss docked my pay for being late.”

“Wow, that sucks.”

“Yeah,” he turned his attention to Stiles. “Who’s this with you?”

“Oh, this is my boyfriend, Stiles.”

Vinny raised an eyebrow, “Interesting name.”

Stiles’ jaw flapped uselessly as he thought of something to say back and came up with nothing.

Malia ignored this.

“Can you let us back?”

“Sure, kitten,” Vinny said as he opened the backstage door for them. “Hey, let your dad know I’m going hunting in Colorado next month, he’s welcome to come with.”

_Of course they bonded over hunting._ Stiles thought to himself.

Malia smiled, “Sure.”

Once it was closed Stiles said, “Mal? Kitten?”

“He calls everyone kitten, even other guys. It’s cute.”

“But ‘Mal’?”

“What? He nicknamed me Mal the first time I was here. I kind of like it.”

“Really?”

“I don’t know. I don’t call you by your real name so what does it matter?”

Stiles lagged behind as he realized she was right.

“Hey!” Malia shouted down the hall to Val.

Val turned, rubbing a towel on her head and squeezing her hair with it.

“Ah, my shadow. What did you think of the show?”

“Good, as always. We watched from the audience this time.”

“A much better view I’m sure. Who’s this?”

“Stiles,” he said and held out his hand.

“Your boyfriend?” Val asked Malia.

Malia smiled and nodded.

“I’m drenched in sweat, I don’t think you want to touch me at the moment.”

“Okay,” Stiles put his hand back down.

Val turned back to Malia, “So, you’re not bored of the show yet?”

“I asked her the same thing,” Stiles laughed.

“I like your shows,” Malia said defensively. She didn’t understand why someone would grow tired of music they liked so quickly. “Your music is good, it means something to me. I’m not sure what it is, but I like it.”

Val laughed softly, “That’s exactly what music is supposed to do.”

Val and Malia smiled at each other, but their moment was interrupted by Stiles’ phone ringing.

“Hello?” Stiles answered. “Okay,” Stiles put his phone on speaker and held it out so Malia and Val could listen.

“We saw it again!” Kira shouted breathlessly. “The same as last time, the eyes, the shape… We’re chasing it right now!” Scuffling could be heard as Kira ran with the phone in her fist.

“Did you get a better look at it this time?” Stiles asked.

“I didn’t, I don’t know if Scott or Liam did. This thing is fast! We startled it and it took off. I don’t know if I can keep up.”

Malia looked at the phone intently, wanting to help her friends. Val stared at the phone with wide eyes as she listened to Kira panting.

“Are Scott and Liam ahead of you?”

“Yeah!” Hold on!“

The call ended and Stiles and Malia looked at each other. Malia shifted her weight on her feet, wishing she were out there chasing down the creature.

Val, on the other hand, was having an internal victory party.

"Yesssss!” She said as she paced happily, “I told you! I told you it wasn’t me!”

“That’s good,” Malia said. She looked to Val and then at Stiles as she tried to figure out if she was right.

“Yeah, you’re innocent,” Stiles said as he fiddled with his phone.

Val picked up on the begrudging tone in his voice.

“Aww, don’t be sad, little boy,” she mocked. “I’m sure you’ll find whoever you’re looking for soon enough.”

“We have like ten crazy ancient bestiaries that Lydia has to go through, and this thing could kill someone else before we even figure out what they might be.”

“What?” Val asked. She suddenly felt rude for celebrating.

“We looked for more books about supernatural beings, trying to find something like a huldra but not a huldra, but Lydia is the only one who can read most of them. Not even all of them, just most.”

“What languages are they in?”

Stiles sighed heavily, “German, French, Italian, Greek, Japanese, Swedish…”

“Urdu, Sanskrit,” Malia added. “I think there was one in an African language that I don’t remember the name of. ”

“Then there was Finnish, Gaelic, and some other ones.”

“Old English I think?”

Val tried to look unaffected, having to suppress the urge to offer to read the books of the languages she knew. Having lived in Europe for most of her life she knew her fair share of languages, as it made moving around easier. If this was years ago and they told her they were having a problem she would have automatically offered to help, but not now. Too many bad things had happened between then and now. The sooner these kids left her alone, the better.

“Good luck,” Val said dryly.

Stiles’ phone rang again. He answered it and put it on speakerphone like before.

Kira huffed and puffed and gasped for air.  "It… got away… WHY AM I SO OUT OF SHAPE?!“

Stiles was shocked at Kira’s outburst, "Oh, I’m sorry. Is Scott there?”

Shuffling and mumbling could be heard through the phone.

“Hello?” Stiles asked, wondering if the phone had been dropped.

“Here,” Scott responded. Arguably less winded than Kira.

“What happened?”

“We saw it. I finally caught a scent too, but it got away. Is Val there?”

“Yeah,” Val answered.

“It has a totally different scent, so you’re off the hook.”

“Told you it wasn’t me,” Val said.

“But I still don’t know how we’re going to catch this thing. It’s too fast.”

Malia looked from Stiles to Val.

Kira’s voice came through the phone. “Maybe… maybe Val can help us.”

Val’s eyes widened, “Me?”

“How?” Stiles and Malia asked while Scott and Liam echoed the same question through the phone.

Shuffling could be heard as Kira got closer to the phone.

“Well, your… your being a huldra. When you sing, it pulls people to you, right?” She asked.

“Yeah…” Val answered cautiously, wondering what she was about to get roped into.

“So I’m thinking, if we can’t catch this thing, maybe we can bring it to us. Maybe you could sing and lure it to us and we’ll set up a trap and just capture it.”

“That… that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea,” Stiles conceded.

Scott sounded more hopeful, “Actually, that could work.”

Val raised her hands in front of her to stop them though Kira couldn’t see her. “Woah… I don’t know guys. I haven’t sung, like really sung, in a long time and…”

Malia looked at her expectantly, Stiles’ expression was harder for her to discern. She couldn’t even imagine what faces the rest of the group were making.

“I’m probably out of practice, I don’t know how well I could control it, it’s probably not the best idea.”

“You could help us find this thing a lot faster than if we kept looking on our own,” Scott explained. “It’s already outrun us twice. You could help us find it before it kills someone else.”

Val sighed heavily and thought to herself for a moment. She felt like she was being put on the spot, but he wasn’t wrong. If she could stop another person from being killed… “Fine. I’ll do it.”

Malia smiled broadly and clapped Val on the shoulder. “It’ll be great! You lay the trap and we capture it!” She turned to Stiles, “Oooh, we should get some nets to throw on it.”

Stiles looked at her quizzically, “What are you, Wile E. Coyote?”

Scott chimed in, “A net isn’t a bad idea.”

Stiles looked blankly at the phone and then Malia. “I wouldn’t even know where to get a net to capture a… whatever. Whatever it is. Where are we going to get a net? Are we doing this tomorrow night? I don’t know about net logistics.”

Malia chuckled at Stiles’ sudden inability to function because of her suggestion.

Val raised an eyebrow, wondering if he was always like this, and smiled.

“I’m sure we’ll figure something out,” Scott said reassuringly.

Stiles rolled his eyes.

* * *

The night was cool, calm. So very different from how Val felt at that moment. She spent almost every hour of the day agonizing about how Kira’s plan, her part in it, was going to go. Was this going to be as easy as it always had been? Or was she going to be so out of practice that everything was going to go wrong?

She tried to steady herself.

_Why did I let myself get talked into this? I should have said no,_ she berated. _…No. I couldn’t have said no. If I have the power to save someone, I should at least try. That’s what dad would have said… shit. Shit, shit, shit._

She wasn’t sure how she felt about the whole thing but she was leaning much closer to ‘not liking it.’ Being in the position of someone knowing what she is, interacting on a level that was closer than just asking when everyone wanted to have band practice next or when they should be there for sound check, actually helping someone else, and helping them to save people? She as so unsure of everything, there was too many variables.

When she left her apartment to meet Scott and his friends when they came to pick her up, she left her bedroom floor covered in clothing. The search of the perfect thing to wear – _What does one wear when luring an unknown entity into a trap and possibly to their death?_ – a subconscious search for some kind of control when she felt like she had none. _Goddamned latent impulse to help people,_ she cursed at herself. She wasn’t looking forward to cleaning up the mess later.

* * *

Malia’s net idea wasn’t entirely farfetched, as she was able to get a one from her dad’s hunting equipment. Stiles wasn’t sure if he should admire her dedication to her plan or show her some old Roadrunner cartoons so she’d finally understand why he called her ‘Wile E.’ when she left with everyone else. Now Val watched as Scott and Malia each climbed a tree holding part of the net.

The plan was simple, at least as far as Kira described it. Scott and Malia would hide in the tree with the net and once Val lured the creature in between the two trees, they would leap down and throw the net onto it. Liam and Kira would wait by the bottom of either tree, hidden, in case the creature attacked Val.

Val had handed out industrial earplugs before they set up hoping that, like the myth of Odysseus and the sirens, they would dampen the effects of her singing if not completely block the soundwaves from their brains. If they were drawn to her as well, not only would they be in a lot of trouble, but so would she. She took her place between the trees.

“All right, Scott said from his perch. "Everyone ready?”

A chorus of 'ready’ met his ears.

Everyone secured their earplugs and Scott gave Val the thumbs up.

Val nodded.

She thought for a second. She tried to remember what it was like to sing a melody instead of scream from the bottom of her vocal cords. She stared off into the trees as the wind gently kissed the backs of her legs. She breathed, and the wind felt like the earth was breathing with her. She needed words and a tune to back it up. She tried to remember one of her older songs from before she stopped singing. The words coalesced in her mind, solidifying as if from dense fog, the melody became more apparent to her as she as the wind blew gently and she breathed in time with its strangely rhythmic nature. She began to sing.

Lydia had been right in guessing that huldras were a sad, lonely lot. Where the kanema needs a master, the huldra desires companionship. If the group could hear her song, such strong feelings of grief and yearning would be elicited from their brains that they would have come out of their hiding spots and given themselves to her as if she were their god. They would have been willing sacrifices on the altar of her. They would have been willing to die for her.

But, fortunately for them and the plan, they heard nothing.

As she sang, Val could feel herself start to stretch proverbial muscles that she hadn’t used in a long time, like an athlete who had finished recovering from an injury. It felt like Geological Eons since she last sang, and she could feel her power expanding and reaching out. Not just to the creature, which she tried to imagine in her head based on the group’s descriptions, but into the earth itself. Her power cut through dirt and stone and fed from the warm, molten interior of the planet. All of it was hers again, warm and inviting. And powerful.

As she continued to sing, her rediscovered power changed the way her voice sounded. It became more smooth and resonant, and seemed as if more than one voice were singing. Her appearance changed only slightly. Instead of the comparatively outrageous transformation of a werewolf Val still appeared as her regular self, long black curls streaming down her shoulders to her mid-back, her normal small stature. No new claws or teeth, but her eyes had changed. Malia and Scott could see it as they watched from the trees. Her pupils and irises had entirely changed from their normal black and green states to a silvery-blue. Like two moonstone cabochons, her eyes adularesced, light apparently coming from within and scattering outward in an eerie bluish glow.

She sang for what was beginning, to her, to feel like hours when she finally saw it. Two eyes in the distance staring at her. The creature, slack-jawed and dragging its feet, slowly made its way to her as it tried to fight her control. She opened her arms like a welcoming lover as she kept singing. The creature was larger than the group had described, but it looked dangerous enough that she figured it needed to be captured.

After a few more minutes of singing, the beast stood before her. And she stopped.

Malia and Scott thought that this meant it was their moment to strike and readied themselves to jump onto the creature, but Val did not move from where she stood. They looked at each other, confused and unwilling to yell lest it snapped the creature from its trance. Liam and Kira peeked from their hiding places.

The creature was still transfixed by Val, and stood before her, waiting. Their eyes were locked, and Val softly touched a hand to each side of the creature’s face. This creature, as large and imposing as it was, let her touch it and as soon as her skin touched its flesh it let out a contented sigh. Val smiled in return, sweetly at first but then more sickening. Her smile spread out across her face exposing her teeth, and her jaw opened.

None of the group understood what they were seeing, watching it as if it were happening in slow motion. Her jaw distended and the creature’s mouth opened as if commanded. Then something, no one was sure what – _Its  soul?_ They all wondered simultaneously – was being pulled out of its body. A swirl of garnet and ruby like thick, luminescent blood ribboned out of its mouth and into hers, writhing through the air like cigarette smoke.

They all instantly knew that this was what the bestiary had meant by 'devour.’ Val was consuming the creature, and it was letting her.

“Val!” Scott yelled.

Liam tackled Val to the ground.

Scott and Malia leapt from the trees, snaring the creature in their net.

Kira ran over to see if the creature was okay, and was met with a snarl.

Val, who had been snapped out of her state by her sudden voyage to the floor, shook Liam off of her.

“You were going to kill it!” Liam shouted.

Val stood. Her eyes were wide, water welling up behind them. Her fists were balled up and her knuckles white from the strain. The thing they were all sure what the creature’s life force dripped from Val’s chin in red drops. She started babbling. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. This is why I didn’t want to help you. I knew it. I knew this would happen. I knew it. This is why I don’t sing, this is why I don’t sing… THIS IS WHY I DON’T DO THIS!!”

The creature began to thrash, fully out of the stupor Val had put it in.

“Liam! I need you to hold it down so I can tranq it!” Scott yelled.

As Liam ran over to hold the creature down, Val ran into the woods.

“Val!” Malia called out.

“Val!” Liam yelled and started in her direction.

“Liam!” Scott yelled again.

Liam ran to Scott’s side and leaned on the creature to stop it from moving.

* * *

Val ran. She didn’t know where she was in relation to the cars they arrived in or what direction she was running in, but she ran. She yelled at herself internally, she was old enough that she learned how to tell directions without a compass - they weren’t invented yet when she was born - but she should be able to tell what direction she was running. She had clearly spent too much time in towns and cities lately. She was probably just running deeper into the forest and getting more lost. She could get lost for all she cared, at least then she’d be far enough away from everyone that she couldn’t hurt anyone.

She had no idea where she was running to. She needed to be away. Just, away. Her feet started to pain her as they pounded against the forest floor, carrying her to some unknown place.

She hadn’t sung in years. What the hell made her think she could control it after so long with no practice? What made her think she wouldn’t get pulled in as well? What the hell made her think that she wouldn’t try to feed? And now after that small taste she felt so hungry. Shouldn’t their banshee have known something? No… no, she should have known. She should have known and she should have said no.

It wasn’t as if she needed to feed. She wasn’t like a wendigo, who needs human flesh to survive. For her it was more like eating ice cream after eating nothing but raw vegetables for months. It was like the electrical jolt of a rush of adrenaline and the kaleidoscopic effects of LSD at the same time. The essence of other living beings that she feed on was salty and sweet and fatty and delicious and now it was all she could think of. _No… no… you used to love it. You don’t love it. You hate it. You did horrible things when you sought it out. You don’t want it. YOU. DO NOT. WANT IT!!_

Now that her head was clearer, she didn’t want it. Not really. She felt awful. That creature was a person on the inside and she almost killed them. She would have been a murderer… again. She had come too far to relapse now. She was wrong, it wasn’t delicious and she didn’t feel good. She just felt dirty.

She stopped. Completely winded and wheezing she spun around. She was disoriented, lost, and tired. She collapsed, her fully splayed hands hitting the rough organic matter of the forest floor. She could still the power she felt before, the dull roar of the earth’s interior dampened by the thin crust she stood on. As she sunk her fingers into the soil they felt cool with the promise of all the radiating heat from the planet’s core. The warmth stilled her mind, a feeling of welcoming love washing over her. She sunk one arm into the dirt and then the other, grabbing fistfuls of earth and pulling it out. This prolonged contact spurred her on and the hole she dug went from a divet to a deep opening in the ground. She willingly let herself fall in when it was deep enough and kept digging, pushing the earth around her frame as she stuck her legs fast into the soil. Her limbs felt warm as she cocooned herself in her burrow. Covering her head with dirt, she closed her eyes.

And she slept.


	6. You Might Be Nice But I'm Still Suspicious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Believe it or not, I actually wrote the thing that would become this chapter first.  
> It's funny how gaining a plot shifted everything around. But I guess that exploration is what makes writing fun.)
> 
> Sometimes, old habits are dead for a reason.
> 
> Word count: 5,740  
> Edited: 15 July 2018

Val sputtered, coughing dirt out of her lungs and scaring herself awake. Shocked, she quickly searched her mind for why she was in darkness and remembered how the night before had gone.

_Oh… this was to stop myself from…_

She supposed it didn’t entirely matter now. The fiery hunger from the night before had entirely subsided, replaced with the pleasant fullness of satiation. She reached a hand through the surface of the forest floor to exhume herself from her burrow. She felt another hand touch hers and jolted. She retracted her hand and dug frantically to see who touched her. She shoved the dirt out of her face and found herself staring up at a pair of steel blue eyes.

“Are you okay?” The owner of the eyes asked. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Val quietly replied.

“Is that a grave you’re in? Did someone put you there?”

“I put me here.”

“Why?”

“Um…” Val tried to think of a reason that might be acceptable to a regular human.

“I know you’re a huldra.”

Val’s eyes widened in shock. Could he be a hunter? Did Scott decide she was so dangerous that he sent someone to bring her back?

“I’m a werewolf,” the man said, bared fangs for her to see and then let his teeth transform back to normal. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Unable to think of a response, Val was still rigid from fear.

“So… do you want to get out of there? Or is that like a summer home or something?”

Val involuntarily cracked a smile at this.

“Ah, so you are somewhat normal,” the man said with a wry smile.

As she chuckled at his smile, Val still wasn’t sure if she should relax.

“Listen, I live in a cabin nearby. You’d be able to shower all that dirt off.”

A shower sounded amazing at that moment but she had no idea who this person was. She could just follow him and then knock him out if it seemed like he was going to attack her. All she needed was one note and he’d be her slave.

Val nodded, “Okay.”

The man smiled and, standing, held out his hand.

Val took his hand and he swiftly freed her from her earthen cocoon and helped her to stand.

“Ow,” Val said as she rubbed her hand.

“Sorry,” the man apologized and reached out to hold her hand.

Val evaded his touch, “You just have a strong grip is all.”

The man smiled weakly as Val observed how dirty her dress was. If she had known last night was going to end the way it did she would have made a different outfit choice that wouldn’t have resulted in her legs being covered in dirt as well. She brushed some off and removed a worm that had stuck to her skin.

“My cabin?” The man asked.

“Couldn’t hurt.”

The man walked in what Val presumed was the direction of his cabin, and she followed him.

* * *

The man opened the door to his cabin and Val cautiously followed behind him as he walked inside. Something suddenly occurred to her.

_He never told me his name._

“Bathroom is that door,” he said pointing. “There’s some extra towels on the shelf and you’re welcome to whatever soap and shampoo you want to use. I’ll make us some tea.”

Val decided it could wait. Her desire to know who he was was quickly being surpassed by her desire to be clean. Although to her, the water and soap would wash away more than dirt in her mind and she was happy that she had a way to reset her emotions after the tumult from last night. As she stood under the borderline scalding water, she wished she had never caved and agreed to help. She tried to push the nagging thought out of her mind before she gave herself an ulcer from the stress. She wondered if she could even get an ulcer. Instead, she decided to contemplate the idea that a very kind, and not wholly unattractive man, was letting her use his shower and was currently making her tea.

A knock at the door surprised her and before she could answer a voice followed, “The cabin has a second room you’ll find if you make a right when you leave the bathroom. I’m going to put some clothes on the bed for you and you can give me yours to wash.”

“Thank you,” Val shouted back, hoping he heard.

She returned to her thoughts. _He could be playing nice so as to lead me into a false sense of security, and then he’ll attack me and take me back to Scott and his friends for some kind of weird werewolf judgement._ She got soap in her eye. _UGH, why this now? Why can’t anything be normal or nice? This guy seems nice. No, it’s probably a trap, treat him with kid gloves. But what if he is really just being nice? What if he happens to actually be a nice person? That’s almost worse. What the hell do I do with that?_ She was finally clean and left the bathroom. She made the right she was told about, after peeking into the kitchen to see how the tea was doing, _Wow, cute butt–SHUTUPSHUTUP,_ and beelined into the second bedroom, finding the clothes he left for her on the bed. His shirt was much too big for her, like something she would wear as pajamas, but at least the sweatpants had a drawstring so they wouldn’t slide off. She dressed and prepared herself for all possible outcomes.

When she walked into the kitchen her benefactor was pouring tea for the two of them.

“I hope black tea is okay,” he apologized. “ I apologize for not having anything more interesting, I honestly didn’t think I’d have company out here.”

"Black is fine.”

He carried their cups to the table and gestured for her to sit. She did and he slid a cup over to her.

“What’s your name?” She asked. “I don’t normally accept help from strangers.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just easier not to let other people get mixed up in my life.”

She couldn’t read his expression. Did he agree? He was in a cabin all by himself. Did he think she was being overdramatic? She certainly didn’t think she was.

He blew on his tea to cool it down. “Deucalion.”

“Interesting name.”

“It’s old. What’s yours?”

“Val.”

“Like Valerie?”

“Like Valerie, but not.”

The corner of Deucalion’s mouth curled slightly at her answer. “So what is it if not ‘Valerie’? Valentina?”

Val tested the temperature of her tea so she could stall for time. She hadn’t told anyone her real name in years, centuries even, always going by an assumed name or just 'Val.’

"My name is also old. Is your name Greek in origin?”

“Yes.”

“And it’s your real name?”

“Yes, why?”

“Hmm,” Val smirked. “Then my name is much older than yours.”

Deucalion shrugged, “Are you going to tell me what it is?”

“Val is short for something, but not for Valerie. It’s short for 'Valaskr.’”

“Is that Norwegian?”

“Ancient Swedish.”

“What does it mean?”

“Dead Ash.”

Deucalion looked at her, his eyes widening slightly.

Is that shock? Val wondered to herself. “'Val’ means death or dead, and 'askr’ means ash. Dead Ash.”

“Ash as in the tree?”

“Mhm,” Val mused as she sipped her tea. “That’s not the name I was given at birth though. That name was forgotten a long time ago.”

“How old are you?”

Val narrowed her eyes. “How old are you?”

He shifted, “No, that’s fair. I don’t know if you know the myth of lycanthropy, but it’s creation places me in ancient Greece… and, well, the myth got that part right, though not much else. So about 1100 BC? Give or take?”

“Wow. You’ve aged well.”

“Perks of being a werewolf, I suppose. Now what about you? And don’t tell me 'a woman never reveals her age.’”

“Woah, wow, I am offended, sir. And not just because you think I would do such a thing, but because you would accuse me of perpetuating such a ridiculously sexist cliché. I would call it archaic were I not actually older than the concept itself.”

Deucalion chuckled, “Alright, alright, I’m sorry.”

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you to respect your elders?”

Deucalion’s smile dropped and his face took on a look of severe disbelief. “No.”

Val nodded.

“There’s no way.”

“You occasionally grow claws and fangs because of the moon and you’re going to sit there and tell me there’s no way?”

“You can’t be.”

“I am.”

Deucalion leaned back in his chair and viewed her. “I’m sorry, but you don’t look it.”

Val shrugged, “Perks of being a huldra, I suppose.”

“That must be so nice. To look so young for so long.”

“Not really. Getting carded is just annoying and strange and an inside joke that very few people will ever know. There’s rarely anyone around that I can laugh about it with.”

Deucalion nodded, “I can see how that would be annoying.”

“Now, for my actual age… I was born in what is now northern Sweden, so long ago that I travelled to what would later be called Wiltshire, England, and saw the building of Stonehenge.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“So you’re much older than me. When was it built?”

Val exhaled lengthily as she searched her memory. “I believe I read that the earliest stones were dated to around 3000 BC. They had raised a few by the time I got there. I had to keep leaving and coming back so no one would catch onto my… not becoming elderly and dying.”

“Ah, I know what that’s like.”

“Yeah, I actually missed seeing some of it being made because I got wrapped in something on continental Europe and by the time I remembered and went back they were almost done.

"Hey, at least you saw some of it. I’m sure there are archeologists that would give their lives to be able to have seen it.”

“I’m sure there are. Sometimes I wish I could tell them the things I remember about it, but that would open a whole can of worms none of us want.”

“Indeed… where in northern Sweden were you born? Do you remember?”

“Somewhere east I think. I was using that new-fangled thing the kids these days use called 'the internet’–

Deucalion interrupted her with a laugh, "I’m sorry, please continue.”

Val smiled, “…and I was trying to find pictures of pottery from various archeological dig sites in north Sweden because I can still remember what the pottery we made looked like after all these years, and I think I was part of the Pit-Comb Ware Culture.”

“You’re certain?”

“Pretty certain.”

“That’s cool. 'The wonders of modern technology.’”

“Yeah.”

They sipped their tea in silence for a few minutes. Val had made a decision: he seemed nice but she could still kill him if she had to, and she didn’t entirely mind having someone to talk to since she had been alone for so long. Not in a physical sense, she had her band and fans that followed them around to shows, but there was no one who had lived even a tenth of the time she had with whom she could be candid with. It was strange and welcome at the same time.

* * *

“So, if you don’t mind my asking, what were you doing in the dirt? I don’t remember anything in the folklore about huldras burying themselves.”

“Know a lot about us, do you?”

“A fair amount. I’m sure you know that when you’ve been around as long as we have you start to hear what regular humans have to say about us.”

“Hmm,” Val agreed. _Offer a huldra your blood, indeed._ “So… what do you know about huldras?”

“I know you’re like sirens, you sing and it pulls people towards you. But you hang out in forests instead of by the sea… is that what you were doing out in the woods?

"Yes, but to help someone else. So, this might sound really stupid so just reserve your judgement until the end, okay?”

“Of course.”

“My… breed I guess? Like if we’re all humans but just different types of human?” She gestured uselessly as Deucalion nodded. “Whatever, huldras, we seem to have something to do with the earth and forests. I’ve always felt much more at ease when I’m in or near a forest than a city.”

“Makes sense.”

“And… being in the dirt…” Val thought, trying to decide on the proper way to explain things. “Some supernatural humans need to take something from normal humans. Wendigos need to eat human flesh or they won’t feel full, right?”

“Yes.”

“Huldras are somewhat similar… We’re not cannibals and we don’t feed on flesh or blood or anything, but we do… eat.”

“What do you mean?”

“We… you know how an angler fish has that light that dangles in front of its mouth to entice prey towards it?”

“Wait, which one’s an angler fish?”

“The one with the huge mouth and small tail and they live in super deep water?”

“Oh, okay. I know what you mean.”

“Yeah. So the song that I sing, it’s kind of like that.”

“What do you do when you draw them to you? If you don’t eat their flesh, I mean.”

“I consume… their essence? Life force? Their soul, maybe? I have no idea what it is, but I can kill someone by taking all of theirs. It feels like, when you eat a huge, well prepared meal, and you feel delightfully full and content, and a little woozy from the sugar hitting your blood. It’s just this feeling of being high. Like pure, warm, loving happiness, and it’s super addicting.”

“Wow. Is it something you can control?”

“Yeah… That’s why I was in the ground. I kind of fell off the wagon and being in the earth itself helps. I’m not sure if it’s my relation to the earth, but it’s not unlike being the root of a tree and passively accepting nourishment from the soil. I’m not sure if that makes the most sense, but it definitely helps.”

Deucalion nodded and sipped his tea thoughtfully.

“I won’t attack you, if you’re worried I might.”

“Why should I be worried?”

“I’m sure you know that even many of our kind think huldras are dangerous.”

Deucalion shrugged, “You have yet to prove them right.”

Val considered telling him the entire story of what had happened the night before.

“Would you like to watch a movie? We can finish our tea in the living room.” Deucalion said as he stood.

Val followed him into the living room where there was a TV set up on an old, wooden trunk.

Deucalion put his tea on the coffee table and grabbed the DVDs that were stacked on it. “I don’t have many movies, but you’re welcome to pick.”

Val surveyed them, not recognizing any of the names. “I’ve never seen any of these, put on whichever you like.”

“You’ve never seen any of these?”

“No? Should I have?”

At once, Deucalion was more animated than he had been the entire evening. “Do you know what German Expressionism is?”

“I think I’ve heard of it before. What years?”

“1920s and 30s.”

“Ah, that’s why. I was in Iceland at the time.”

“Why?”

Val sighed and sat. “War had just happened in Europe and it was on the horizon once again. I didn’t particularly want to be involved a second time.”

“I understand. I actually ended up joining the French resistance.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll tell you about it another time. But anyway, the movement - German Expressionism - it was born out of this desire to show what was in the character’s heads instead of just the surface of their actions.”

“You mean that cinema hadn’t done anything like that up to that point?”

“No, stories were more focused on what the characters did, not what they thought. You know?”

Val nodded.

"Okay, um… it really started during and after World War One, as soldiers were coming back from war with PTSD and psychology was really getting going because now someone had to figure out what was wrong with these men…”

Val listened as he explained a huge swath of human history she was never involved in, but she was also watching him. He seemed nice if a little cold at their first meeting, civil and polite but distant. She thought he might have helped her because he was the kind of person who felt obligated to help others out of a sense of duty. Now, though, he was warm, explaining German cinema to her not just because she asked but because he was interested in it and wanted to share that knowledge with her. As she listened she thought about how nice it was to be able to talk to someone without having to feel on edge. To talk to someone without reminding herself to ‘act normal’ so they wouldn’t discover secret that felt very obvious to her. Not that she hadn’t become almost an expert at letting the general populace know what she was in recent decades, but it was nice to not have to pretend.

It struck her as weird that that modicum of truth allowed them to connect more in the past hour or so than she normally could or even allowed herself to, because a connection would mean having to explain how she’s five millennia old to someone who wouldn’t even live to be a century.

“… so by using these fantastical sets, camera angles, and lighting, they were able to bring that feeling out of the character so the viewer could feel it, and it basically changed movies forever.”

Val smiled, “That’s pretty cool. So, history lesson aside–”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“I don’t mind. Which one do you want to watch first?”

“I suppose we could start at the beginning.” He put the other DVDs down and, smiling, held one up for Val to see. “The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari.”

“I’m excited,” Val replied with a laugh.

Deucalion chuckled and turned on the TV. He opened the DVD player and popped the disc in. Grabbing the remote he adjusted the volume until he felt it was adequate and leaned back with his tea in his hands.

They watched the movie in almost complete silence, the score of the movie too interesting for Val to want to talk over. She watched as the overexaggerated set pieces entered and left the frame, heavily contrasted backgrounds and stark camera angles speaking to the madness of the characters. She was bemused by the actor’s faces being painted to make them look more expressive than they were, and by their melodramatic gesticulations. She could understand why Deucalion liked it so much, there was something particularly earnest in trying to expose the inner thoughts of the character to the viewer so they could feel what the character was feeling instead of just observing their actions. And she found the honesty of the sometimes very obviously painted backgrounds charming in their childlike paint strokes.

The movie ended and the credits rolled so Deucalion turned the TV off. Val figured that now was as good a time as any to tell him why he found her buried in the soil, she was so tired of always feeling like she had to keep something from someone, so she did.

Being suspected by Scott and his friends. Being under their surveillance at her band’s performances. Feeling cornered and agreeing, against her better judgement, to help them. Fleeing into the woods after she couldn’t control herself. All of the feelings that experience had pulled to the surface like dredging hooks pulling a body up from the sticky sediments of a lake bottom.

* * *

“I just… I suppose I thought it would be easy because it had been for so long, but I guess I was so out of practice that I was getting into more than I could actually handle.”

“It happens to everyone.”

“But when a junkie relapses, they normally only harm themselves.”

Deucalion nodded solemnly as Val, mildly irritated at his trying to help, looked around the room trying to think of something to derail the discussion with.

“So, what about you? What are you doing in this cabin all by your lonesome?”

“That’s kind of a long story.”

“Are you an Omega?”

Deucalion sighed, “I suppose I am now. Self-imposed.”

“Why?”

“I… Before I explain anything, I feel like you might be of the understanding that… as people who have been alive for as long as we have, more time means more things can happen in that time, yes?”

“Of course.”

“But that doesn’t just mean the good things that can happen to us or the good things we might have done, but also the bad.”

“Mhm.”

“And… the absolute fuck ups.”

“I’ll try and keep an open mind.”

“Alright, I just didn’t want you to leave before I could finish explaining myself.”

Val smiled encouragingly and patted the sofa cushion, “I’ll stay right here until you’re done.”

Deucalion inhaled deeply and exhaled as he tried to collect his thoughts. “I was an Alpha for a long time. My pack I had here in California, I was leader of for fifty or so years.”

“Is that long for a pack?”

“A sizeable chunk of time as far as packs go. And… for all the things we went through, it was difficult at times but it was worth it because they were my family. For most of that time I was trying to broker peace between my and the other packs which was easy enough. I became good friends with the alphas of two of the other packs, Ennis and Kali, they were both much younger than I was, but they were good people. The trouble started when a family of hunters moved into the area, and I imagine now that they might have heard some murmurs of the friendships the packs here were forming. But I didn’t see a point in the hunters coming for us when we were keeping to ourselves, there are bigger things in the world to worry about.”

“Like?”

“My time in the French Resistance, most of my then pack had joined up with me to help fight back against the Nazi invasion, and some hunters had followed us and tried to kill us. We were trying to liberate a city, and they were trying to kill us,” he said indignantly.

“You’d think they would see you as the good guys since you were fighting the Nazis.”

“Exactly. We went because we wanted to fight against tyranny but they were blinded by what they thought we were instead of recognizing our actions as noble and for the benefit of all.” He sighed, “But that’s one example among many. I wanted them to see that were peaceable and a force for good, not the boogey men they seemed to think we were. We might be werewolves but we aren’t animals and can still care about normal humans.”

“Did you ever manage to convince them?”

“That’s how I ended up here. A decade or so ago I decided to talk to one of the hunters. One of the leaders, a man by the name of Gerard betrayed me. He made it look like his men were attacked by my pack and burned my eyes with these… arrows with flashbang grenades on them.”

“And humans say we’re the shifty ones. I can see they’ve healed.”

Deucalion shook his head sadly, “No, not at first. I was blinded for years… this is the part of my story where you need to reserve your judgement.”

“I told you I would.”

“When… when I was first told I was going to remain blind one of my Betas attacked me. I don’t know if you know that a Beta will attack an Alpha if they feel they’re weak and unable to lead.”

“I’ve heard of such things in the past, but I don’t generally hang around many Weres so I didn’t know if it was true or not.”

“Well, that’s what normally happens. An opportunistic Beta will attack their Alpha, transferring the power of being an Alpha onto themselves. So, in the traditional fashion, he tried to take my power and I just… I lost it. I tore him to shreds in the span of a few seconds and in doing so I discovered two things. One, as I shifted closer to wolf I could actually see; and two, I could take his power and add it to my own.” Deucalion paused and read Val’s face hoping to discern what she thought of him.

Val appeared unmoved, waiting for him to continue his story.

“I… I lost my mind. I destroyed my pack, taking each of their power as I killed them brutally, and then I turned to my friends and told them to do the same so we could form a pack of super-powered Alphas.”

“What was the rationale behind that?”

He shrugged sadly. “I don’t think there was any. Power, I suppose.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I don’t know. How I behaved then was so different from how I behaved before or after. It was like my entire thought process changed once I lost my sight.”

“How did you get it back?”

“An evil druid gave it back to me.”

“…Excuse me?”

 Deucalion laughed and began again. Losing his sight. Forming the pack. Finding out that Derek Hale was an Alpha. His plan for forcing either he or Scott to join him. The Darach and her plan to revenge herself on him and his Alpha pack. All the people she sacrificed to weaken him. Scott and Derek’s plan to pit the two big bads against each other and tricking the Darach into giving him his sight back. Being spared by them after he killed the Darach.

“Derek said that his mother, Talia, told him I was a man of vision, and the only reason they were letting me go was because they were hoping I could be that man again. That’s why I’m back, I want to try and live up to the ideals I worked so hard for. I want to live by those ideals again.” Deucalion realized he was becoming somewhat heated and calmed himself before continuing. “When I think about that time now, it’s like it was another version of me. Or maybe… it was my body, but it was like I was being puppeteered by someone else. I don’t know.”

“Maybe it was the rage.”

“No, I understand that I made the choices I made, but I have no idea why I made them. None of it makes sense to me.”

“Then… maybe the arrows did something you were unaware of.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, I’m not a doctor. But maybe there was something that was unaccounted for.”

Deucalion became quiet as he thought to himself. Maybe she was right.

“We, both of us, have done… terrible things in our past,” Val offered. “All we can hope for is that we can atone. That maybe someone will remember us with fondness when we’re gone.”

Deucalion nodded.

Val couldn’t think of anything else to say so she remained quiet. She contemplated the man in front of her, someone who worked so hard to prove that he was more than his nature, only to have it taken all away from him by a man that - by her guess - was acting only from his nature and not with his knowledge of the world. She wondered if this Gerard thought he was helping the situation and if he regretted not outright killing him so he wouldn’t become a bigger problem later. A problem that spawned another problem, even.

It was Deucalion’s turn to change the subject. “So, what do you do for fun?”

“Really?”

“Yes. I figure we need a change of topic.”

“Well, I have the band that I told you about, but I don’t do what most people would describe as 'singing.’”

“What do you do? Play tambourine?”

Val laughed, “No, it’s a kind of singing, though I’m not sure you would refer to it as such… Here,” Val pulled her phone out of her pocket and opened up Youtube. “I’m pretty sure someone uploaded at least one video.” After some searching for a video in which her vocals weren’t drowned out by all of the other noise, she found one and played it, holding the phone up for Deucalion to watch as she watched his face to see his reaction at her singing.

He raised his eyebrows, “That’s you singing?”

Val smiled, “This kind of singing is called a death growl or guttural growl.”

“What’s the kind of music called?”

“We play death metal, black metal, doom metal, ambient metal, things like that. Blackened death metal.”

“Now you’re just making things up.”

Val chuckled.

“I know that plain 'metal’ exists, does that get me any points?” Deucalion joked.

“A few,” Val smiled. “Maybe three points.”

Deucalion watched the video intently. “So this doesn’t affect people in the same way melodious singing does?”

Val went to put her phone in her pocket but noticed she had a text from Brian asking her where she was. She typed a quick reply about having an emergency come up and being unable to be reached for a few days and shut off her phone before putting it in her pocket.

“Um, no. It seems to have to do with melody. If I’m singing something that has a clear progression of notes, people become entranced, but if it’s a song with short notes with no complex range it doesn’t happen. Unless the listener is a banshee, they seem to hear it no matter what.”

“Probably because they’re hearing things that humans can’t hear.”

“Yeah. It’s not like anyone has done any scientific work on it so I can’t know for sure.”

“Do you ever wish you could sing in a more melodious way?”

“Of course. I really do enjoy singing, it’s cathartic for me. It helps me deal with my problems and feelings… even if the words aren’t mine, you know?”

Deucalion nodded as he drank the last of his tea.

“It’s just sad that I can’t sing the way I really want to. It just… hypnotizes people. And then the hunger takes over and…” she shook her head, “that’s why I swore it off.”

“You don’t sing at all now?”

“Not unless it’s what I showed you.”

“Is that difficult? Not singing so you don’t feed on– kill people?”

“It was for a long time, then I had gotten a handle on it for hundreds of years. Yesterday… wasn’t something I’m proud of.”

Deucalion thumbed the lip of his mug. “Did that kind of… awaken your desire to live that way again? To become the threat to humanity you were before?”

“Are you asking what I think you’re asking?”

“Not like that–”

“I thought you weren’t worried.”

“It just seems like you’ve relapsed. What I’m trying to ask is–”

“One, _I haven’t done it already_ , and two, I trust you not to hurt me after what you told me.”

Deucalion opened his mouth to respond but Val continued.

“You just told me all the horrible things you did after you were betrayed, and I don’t think any less of you. Sometimes people snap, where do you think all those Scandinavian legends of men being lured into the forest to their deaths came from? But just because I lost control once – after years of having it, I might add - doesn’t mean I’ll be like that for the rest of my life.”

Deucalion looked at her very seriously.

“We have been killers in our pasts, but I try very hard not to make that my future. And you too, I think, are trying to be a better version of yourself.”

Deucalion wasn’t sure what to say. Her words seemed leveled, but the tone in her voice and the slight uptick in her heart rate told him otherwise. Before he could react, she stood.

“I’m going to bed. Goodnight, Deucalion.”

Val walked around the couch and into her room and shut the door behind her.

* * *

Deucalion leaned back into the couch cushions and let himself sink as far as gravity would take him. He could have handled that better. He should have handled that better. What the hell was wrong with him? She was right, they were from similar places, they were both killers at some point in their lives and he should have been more empathetic to what she was saying. Especially because she had just been so kind to him. Most people would never try to understand the mind of someone who was telling them they spent close to a decade acting like a comic book villain. Killing their adopted family and convincing their friends to kill theirs, in turn spawning something so vengeful that it cost the lives of almost a dozen people? Most people would have written him off after his introductory sentence where he was trying to gauge if she would stick around to listen to all of it, or run, terrified, into the night. But she had listened, and empathized, and he sensed she really understood him. And then he reciprocated by acting so poorly when she was confiding in him what had happened the night before.

From their introduction where she had initially refused to tell him her name to the fact that it took a few hours for her to want to tell him why he found her in a shallow grave of her own making, he realized that she was reluctant to allow herself to be vulnerable in any way. And he asked the wrong question. And pissed her off.

It wasn’t even that he was going to ask if she thought she could regain control after what happened, he wanted to ask if… He wasn’t sure what he was going to ask.

Deucalion took his hands and pressed as he dragged them down the length of his face, letting them fall to either side of him on the couch. He sighed.

_I’m such an absolute arse._


	7. The History, The Heresy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forgive and forget, remember and regret.
> 
> Word count: 5,438  
> Edited: 15 July 2018

Val woke. For a moment she was almost as confused as she was upon waking the night before until she realized she was in a comfortable bed. She was thankful for the lack of soil. _Oh, yeah. Deucalion._ She hadn’t completely decided if she was angry with him before she fell asleep. And although she had woken with the sunrise, she lay in bed wasting time before she had to speak to him again. She still wasn’t yet sure what she would say or how he would react. She contemplated climbing out the window and leaving without saying goodbye, but she would be leaving her clothes behind and effectively stealing his.

A knock at the door made her jump.

“Val? I’m sorry about what I said yesterday. If you’re up for it, I’d like to make it up to you with some breakfast. What do you say?”

Val thought for a moment, maybe she had jumped to conclusions. Maybe she needed to try and be nice for a change instead of constantly defaulting to pushing people away–

“Val?”

“Uh, sure.”

“It’s about halfway done, come out when you’re ready.”

Val heard his footsteps as he walked back into the kitchen. She got out of bed and put his shirt and pants back on, wondering if her dress was clean. She didn’t remember either of them hanging it up to dry yesterday.

When she opened the door she was greeted with the smell of sausages, eggs, warm maple syrup, and waffles. She wondered if there was a way that a werewolf could somehow smell her and discern that waffles were her favorite, but she instead decided the thought was silly.

“Sit down, sit down,” Deucalion said as he ushered her to a seat at the table.

Val smiled and sat as he pushed her chair in for her and hurried back to the stove.

“You’re quite the chef,” Val said appreciatively.

“While I was blind I couldn’t make my own food,” he explained as he bounced back and forth between frying sausages and taking waffles out of the iron. “There was no way to tell if something was cooked correctly since smell will only take you so far, and it was tumultuous to try and chop anything. Since I got my eyesight back, I’ve relished the ability to cook again.”

“Time well spent, I think,” Val said as she watched him finish the eggs and add them to two already full plates.

Deucalion shut off the burners and brought the two plates over, sitting across from her.

“The sausages are elk. I hope you like them.”

Val stabbed one with her fork and bit into it, “Oh my god, this is amazing. I haven’t had elk since I moved to America. Eating ‘weird’ meat is terrible for blending in.”

Deucalion laughed, “Werewolves are somewhat less concerned with what other people think about what we eat since we stay further away from society. I killed it myself.”

Val smiled, “A man after my own heart.”

They both stuffed their faces with what could accurately be described as 'probably, most likely, way too much breakfast for a normal person.’

After a long silence, Deucalion decided to speak. “Listen, I’m sorry for implying that you might kill me yesterday.”

“I’m used to it. No one likes or trusts huldras.”

“No. It was rude and stupid considering I’m just as dangerous as you are, if not more.”

Val decided not to argue with him on his last point although she knew he was wildly wrong.

“I’m sorry.”

Val stared at him. His apology came of his own volition, she didn’t ask for it. He seemed genuine. “I thought the breakfast was supposed to make up for it, and you’re apologizing? You’re almost too apologetic.” Val said with an awkward laugh and went back to eating.

“I just can’t stand the idea of having you mad at me,” Deucalion blurted out.

Val’s eyes widened in shock as she looked up from her food.

Deucalion surprised himself. He didn’t realize what was coming out of his mouth until it was too late.

They both went back to their food, each trying to pretend that nothing had happened.

_Why did he have to say that? What does it mean? What is wrong with him_? Val agonized.

_Why did I say that out loud?_ It was barely a thought in his head before it slipped through his lips, embarrassing the both of them. _Yes, it’s true, but why did I say it?_

Deucalion couldn’t tell if it was her heart or his that he heard thundering in his ears. A sudden skip in the beat made him realize he was hearing both of their hearts, now out of sync but just as loud as before. Maybe she was just a nervous as he was, but he started to feel as if he knew a secret she didn’t tell him. It didn’t feel right. “You’re nervous.”

Val looked up again, “Excuse me?”

“I can hear your heart. Sorry,” he said sheepishly.

She didn’t know what to say. “So you’re what, eavesdropping on my feelings?”

“Not on purpose. Mine is pounding too, if it makes you feel better.“

"Why are you telling me that?”

“I… don’t know.”

“You could have just not said you heard it and then you wouldn’t have to tell me you were also nervous. Why did you say you couldn’t stand having me mad at you? Why say any of it?”

“I um… I don’t know.”

He thought she seemed angry as she went back to eating, the exact opposite of what he wanted. He racked his brain to try to figure out what to say to make her less mad. If only he could go back in time and stop himself from his first offense. _Hundreds of years of diplomacy and I have nothing._ He decided to go with honesty.

“You’re interesting to me.”

Val looked up again, less aggressive, and more curious. “How so?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Deucalion put his utensils down. “You’ve been around much longer than I have yet you still try to be a part of human society. You found a way to do what you enjoy without hurting people. You try to help people who need it. It makes you… someone worth talking to.”

“That’s why you don’t want me mad at you? Because I won’t talk to you if I am?”

“I think so.”

Val turned her fork over in her fingers as she thought.

“I know you’ll probably leave today. I didn’t want us to be on bad terms is all.”

“What makes you think I’ll leave today?”

“I’m sure you want to get back to your life, your band and everything else.”

“I don’t know that I do at the moment.”

“Why not?”

Val sighed and put her fork down purposefully. “If I go back to my band, Scott and his pals will show up. I don’t know that I want to talk to them about what happened yet.”

“They’re really not that bad. They’re just trying to keep people safe.”

“And yet I am unmoved.”

“Well… you can stay here as long as you like. It’s a little boring but no one but you knows I’m here.”

Val smiled, “Trying to keep me around because I’m 'interesting’?”

Deucalion smiled back, “Is that so wrong?”

* * *

Once breakfast was finished, Deucalion began washing the dishes but Val vehemently insisted upon helping. “You’ll find I can be quite stubborn,” she said as she stacked several prep bowls on top of their plates and put them in the sink.

Deucalion grinned. He had almost forgotten what it was like to be around someone who didn’t do things purely for personal gain. That was one of the problems with his Alpha pack, aside from all the violence, there was a lot of warring of egos and secret alliances. It was a wonder they stayed together as long as they did before everything happened. He was so unused to help that it took several minutes before he realized he was standing there musing about the moral strength of others because of some plates in the sink.

“I thought you were helping,” Val said with a raised eyebrow.

“I thought I was cleaning dishes.”

“You cooked, it’s only fair that I clean.”

Deucalion gathered the rest of the utensils and their glasses from the table as Val scrubbed the first bowl clean and flipped it over to examine it, making sure it was truly clean. He wondered about her.

“Dry,” she commanded, breaking his train of thought as she handed him the bowl.

He grabbed a towel and obeyed

“So,” Val began, “You’re here to clear your head after all the horrible things you did, and you want to live up to the way Talia described you to her son.”

“Right.”

“A 'man of vision’ as it were.”

“Correct.”

“How have you been spending your time?”

“Well, I’ve been reading a lot. I tried to find as many books written by or about leaders who used peaceful resistance and wanted to unify people.”

“Martin Luther King?”

“Of course.”

“Not bad. What else?”

“I’ve been meditating. Trying to unpack how I was at that time so I could come to terms with my actions. I killed or caused the deaths of a lot of innocent people.”

“Mhm.”

I’ve also been trying to remember what it was like to be the me I was before, if that makes sense. The man who desperately wanted peace between werewolves and the Argents.“

"Not a bad idea.”

“And I guess… I’ve been writing. Not anything important, just thoughts. Trying to put everything into perspective.”

“And watching movies?”

Deucalion chuckled, “Sometimes one needs to relax.”

Val smiled.

“Would you like to watch another one after we’re done cleaning?”

“I think I might like to see what books you have to read.”

“It’s nothing for light reading.”

Val leveled her gaze at him, “Do I look like I only like light reading?”

Deucalion paused, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply you were a frivolous person, but that maybe you wanted more light-hearted things to busy yourself with considering what you must be going through at the moment.”

Val saw her mistake. “True, but I’m one of those people who doesn’t know how to relax.”

“Really?”

“Truthfully. We could play a card game instead if you really think I need to take my mind off serious things. And if you have cards.”

Deucalion shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t have any. I could run to the store I normally buy provisions from and get a pack. Before we met I was planning on going today. You could come with me if you like.”

“How are you not noticed by Scott and his pack if you leave the cabin?”

“It’s two towns over. They rarely leave Beacon Hills so I’ve been safe so far.”

“Ah. Well, call me paranoid if you want, but I think I’d feel better if I stayed here. I don’t know if Scott is actively looking for me in the woods.”

Val finished washing the utensils and rinsed her hands of soap. Deucalion dried the last fork and handed Val the towel so she could dry her hands.

“You know,” Deucalion said as he watched her, “Scott and Derek let me live because they hoped I could be the man I once was. You didn’t kill the creature he was looking for so he’ll probably forgive you.”

“True, but they had suspected I was the one who killed the man in the woods before they knew different. After seeing what I can do they probably just think I’m dangerous.”

Deucalion looked into her eyes.

Val looked away, busying herself with folding the towel up perfectly and placed it next to the sink. “I’d just rather not go out.”

“If that’s what you want.”

“So, what books do you have?”

* * *

“This is a much larger library than what I would have imagined such a small cabin to have,” Val said as she crouched, looking at the titles

Deucalion folded his arms and leaned on the wall behind her, “It’s just two shelves.”

“These are two large shelves that take up most of the wall. I just can’t figure out why they’re in the master bedroom and why it’s so small.”

“They’re not, this used to be the study. The guest bedroom is actually the master bedroom. I just bought a second bed and put it in here so I could read without having to go to another room for more books.”

“I like that. I mean, I was born way before writing was even a thing but I love books. I love that people could write down their ideas or feelings and have someone in the far-off future read them. They’re like one-way time travelers, bringing us information from the past.”

“That’s an interesting way of thinking of it.”

“Thank you, I don’t always say such profound things but–” she stopped when she looked at the titles on the next shelf. “Poetry?”

“Yeah?”

“I never would have pegged you for the poetry type.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. You seem so rugged, I guess.”

“Byron was extremely rugged and he wrote poetry.”

Val pointed at him, “That’s true. That’s very true. I’m sorry for judging.” She turned back to the shelf and smiled. “And you have Byron.”

Deucalion smiled. “He does help with one’s brooding.”

Val laughed.

Deucalion smiled, “You can read whatever you like. I’m going to make that run to the store.”

Val stood, “Can I read what you’ve written?”

“I… why would you want to do that?”

“I’m curious. I wonder what goes on inside the head of a man like you.”

“You could just ask.”

“True. But you said it was an exercise in re-learning yourself. I’m interested to see what you wrote.”

“I- I’m sure you don’t want to read it. It’s disjointed and not organized at all, more of a journal really.”

All his former smoothness and charisma made way for a shocked expression and stuttering nervousness. Val decided not to press the matter further.

“Okay.” She said with a reassuring smile. “I’ll pick something from the shelf. See you when you get back.” She crouched and continued her search for a book.

Confused she asked, Deucalion stood awkwardly for a moment before leaving the room and walking out the front door. In fact, she had thrown him for such a loop that it took him until he was about a quarter mile away from the house before he realized he forgot his wallet and had to go back for it. The walk to the store wasn’t much better, normally he enjoyed it as a reprieve from being cooped up in his cabin, but now he just agonized over her question and wished he was in the store already with its tinned music piping through the P.A. system and its overabundance of visual noise expertly designed to distract shoppers from whatever their purpose might have been when they decided to enter the store.

Once he was actually in the store and shopping, he had focus and could control the flurry of thoughts that were happening inside his head. _Why? That is the big question. Why does she want to know? She seems so standoffish herself, why ask to see what I wrote? Is she a hypocrite? Is she… am I interesting to her? Is something happening here? We’ve only known each other for a day and she went to sleep mad at me, I’m sure of it. But she seemed so amenable at breakfast this morning, and even helped clean up. She didn’t have to but she did. Maybe she’s not as cold as she likes to think she is?_ He looked down into his shopping basket and realized he had already gathered everything he needed, but he still hadn’t come to a decision on whether or not to let Val read his writings.

* * *

Val was sprawled out on the couch and was halfway through her chosen book when Deucalion returned, bags of groceries in tow. He put them down on the table and walked into the living room.

He peered at the cover of the book Val was engrossed in. “Byron?”

“Yes. I’ve never read this one so I figured, 'why not?’”

“Which one?”

“'Lara, A Tale.’ It’s interesting for the most part.”

“Not one of his best, but I did like it. Why don’t you help me put these groceries away and then,” he pulled the pack of cards out of his pocket and brandished them at her, “we can play a game.”

Val put the book down and stood, “Sure.”

They made quick work of the groceries and were, the entire time, trying to decide on which card game both of them remembered enough of the rules to play. They slowly realized that neither of them knew many card games in the first place.

“I’m not sure why I even suggested cards now– two-person Gin Rummy,” Val said and sat at the table once the groceries were put away.

Deucalion laughed as he joined her. “Why?”

“Because I actually remember all the rules off the top of my head.”

“I’m not sure I know enough of them.”

“I can refresh your memory if need be.”

“How am I supposed to know that you won’t take advantage of me and tell me all the wrong rules so you win?”

Val smiled. “I might be a killer and an ex-junkie, but if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s a sneak.”

Deucalion laughed and sat across from her.

Val unwrapped the pack of cards and shuffled them.

“Where did you learn Gin Rummy?” Deucalion asked, amused.

“An elderly woman I knew in the 1950s taught me. All her children moved away and she had no one to talk to, so she kind of adopted me as her granddaughter.”

“Ironic,” Deucalion said with a raised brow.

Val doled out their cards and smiled. “I know. We’d play on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, and she would tell me about what it was like to grow up in the late 1800s and early 1900s.” As Val spoke she started the game and both of them placed cards on the table in an effort to win. “I knew what had happened from reading newspapers at the time and reading history books later, but it was wild to hear her tell me from her perspective of being a little girl. Her parents were refugees from the German civil wars so she had some really interesting stories about moving to America. Some of them were heartbreaking.”

“Yeah?” Deucalion asked as he looked at the cards spread out on the table. He was pretty sure he was losing and he didn’t like it.

“Mhm. Her family changed their name from 'Engle’ to 'Angel’ and converted to Protestantism to avoid all the hatred Americans were heaping on German immigrants at the time. She said she always wanted to change her name back but couldn’t because of World War Two.”

“Makes sense.”

“I felt bad for her. All that hatred caused her to give up so much of her culture and identity, and in the end her children didn’t know any of their heritage or 'the old ways’,” she accompanied her emphasis with air quotes, “then they all moved away and never called or wrote to her. By the time I met her she had nobody left.”

Val put down more cards and Deucalion winced. Now he was sure he was losing. By a lot.

“I feel that’s always a hazard of being one of us,” he said as she stared at his hand, hoping to be able to make up the points before the game ended.  He put down more cards. “The passage of time is all the more acute and no matter how long you live, the ravages of life are still painful.”

Val put down cards in response.

“But you’re living life not only through your own eyes, but through the eyes of everyone you meet as you kind of collect their stories as time progresses.”

Deucalion put down cards, Val put down more.

“It’s sad.”

“I wholeheartedly agree.”

Neither of them had any cards left in their hands. Deucalion counted the points each had earned as Val simply folded her hands on the table.

Deucalion stopped counting and looked up at her. “You won, didn’t you?”

Val smiled. “Yes I did.”

“Okay, I told you I don’t remember the rules.”

Val scooped up the cards. “You did everything right though. Such is the draw of the cards.” She shuffled them again. “Are we going 'best two out of three’?”

“Of course. And I’m kicking your ass.” He leveled at her, both fists on the table.

“Woah, back up everybody,” she said almost dropping the cards as her own laugh took her by surprise. “The 'Alpha of Alphas’ is going to kick my ass at a card game.”

Deucalion’s faux-menacing look broke when he started laughing. “I shouldn’t have told you about that.”

“Okay,” Val said as she handed out the cards. “Best two out of three.”

Val finished dealing the cards and they both stared at their hands. Deucalion started the game this time, and Val knew she had to defend her crown as the former winner.

“Can I ask you something?” She asked tentatively.

“Go ahead.”

“I was thinking about what you said yesterday. Why did you try to stop the tradition of a Beta killing a weak Alpha and becoming Alpha?”

“After a while it didn’t make sense to me. I think the original belief was to 'cull the herd’ or something, to get rid of the weak so only the strong remained, but actual wolves don’t function that way.”

Val laughed. “I know nothing about the lives of wolves, so you’re going to have to explain what that means.”

“The original studies humans did on wolves, sometime in the 1960s, took wolves from all different packs and put them together to see how they behaved.  These wolves, who didn’t know each other and had no ties to each other, formed a pack with a violent pecking order. Every problem was solved by fighting and the weakest members weren’t cared for. Any modern idea of wolves that we have in the west comes from this study.”

“And that’s not the reality?”

“Not at all. Once a few scientists realized that experiment wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on, they started observing wolf packs in the wild and quickly realized they were family units. The Alpha male might be vicious towards threats to the pack, but he was loving and caring towards its members. The Alpha female wasn’t a baby factory, she was the brains of the operation who decided where the pack went and how long they would stay there. They were so much more like nomadic humans trying to eke out an existence together than the brutal killers the first experiment led us to believe. And I really think that idea of wolves being killers has leaked into the way we, as Weres, think of ourselves.”

“You think the study influenced werewolves that much?”

“I believe it did; we are, after all, humans first and werewolves second. If you observe a wolf pack in its natural habitat the Alpha male is all self-assurance and quiet confidence. They lead by example and have a calming effect. Ancient peoples knew this and saw themselves in the wolves, that’s why they regarded them so highly, but we’ve forgotten that.” Deucalion sighed, “Too often in a werewolf pack there is nothing but in-fighting and a blatant disrespect for authority.”

“Maybe that’s just because it involves humans, and humans are much more self-interested than animals.”

“I don’t know. I ran my own packs as an Alpha wolf does even before I knew about the study, but… I don’t know.” Deucalion ran his hand down his face in exasperation.

Val thought for a moment, “But, the way you become Weres, that’s like taking a wolf from each pack, is it not? Each member is taken from their family and brought into this new one and expected to get along, maybe it’s not unlike the 1960s experiment. Maybe there’s something fundamentally wrong with how packs are created.”

“Maybe. But I always turned people who wanted to be turned instead of turning people against their will. And Weres can and do have kids. The Hale family was a large family and pack that included Weres and non-Weres who lived together peacefully.”

“Because they were family, like the wolves observed in the wild.”

“You’re not wrong. I was working towards that before I knew what it was.”

“You wanted something like that for yourself?”

“Yeah, I mean, most people want a family whether it’s a family they make through marriage and procreation or a family they make through having close ties with people they care about. Don’t they?”

Val mused to herself, “Hmm, I don’t think that I would know. I’ve spent most of my time alone for the past half millennium.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Sometimes that’s just what life does to us.”

“Well… I’ve always wanted a family and a pack. I enjoy the sense of community and being surrounded by people I love. Being able to come home to a place where you can be safe from the world, you know?”

“That sounds nice.”

“That’s what I was trying to build before… well, you know.”

Val nodded and put down her last card.

Deucalion lost a second time.

* * *

Once they had exhausted the supply of movies, the week that followed was filled with reading, talking, and cards. One night over dinner – a rich dinner of fresh venison, roasted vegetables, and gravy – Val joked that it reminded her of upper class Georgian society.

Deucalion shrugged, “I wouldn’t have known. I spent most of that period fighting against the British in various uprisings in their colonies. I’m having a hard time imagining you wearing empire waist dresses and making polite conversation.” He added with a wry grin.

“Who do you think I am, Caroline Bingly? I’ll have you know I played fiddle with a few other musicians in a tavern whilst dressed as a man.”

“Why as a man?”

“I’m from Scandinavia. No continental European was going to try and marry me off, turning me into someone’s property just because of what’s between my legs. Impersonating a man was the only way I could keep my freedom. However, I did con my way into several upper-class balls just to see what all the fuss was about.”

“And what did you think?” Deucalion pushed the gravy towards her in case she wanted it.

“Thank you,” Val said and poured the gravy over the vegetables. “Boring as all get out. The servants were much more fun.”

“Ah, so you were always such a rebel.”

“Well, I hardly think I would call it rebellious. More like, I knew what I wanted from life, and simpering in opera gloves wasn’t it.” She stabbed her fork into a roast potato and looked at it pointedly. “George Sand had it right; the idea of being married to a man who looks like a potato is extremely unattractive when the other option is writing novels and boning Chopin.” She ate the potato.

Deucalion chuckled.

“You were quite the rebel in your younger days, no? I can’t imagine that someone who would join the French resistance could be any less.”

“Rebel without a clue maybe. I believe 'heretic’ would have been the appropriate word.”

“Is that so?”

“Swearing off the gods of your people for their predecessors is normally viewed that way, yes. Especially after your father goes and serves human flesh to the father of the gods himself.”

“That was really Zeus?” Val asked in wide-eyed disbelief.

“I don’t know what he was, but the lightening he destroyed my father’s house with was no lie. And well, I am what I am now so, he had to have been something.”

“And here I thought I had a strange youth.”

Deucalion smiled. “Well we can’t all have grown up in idyllic Scandinavia where nothing bad ever happened and with families whom I’m sure were perfectly nice.”

Val smiled and rolled her eyes. _Well, you’re half right._

Deucalion looked wistful for a moment as he cut into his steak and slide the piece around in the gravy and juices. “Those were terrible times. My brothers and I… we were all stuck. Wolves in shape but lacking the knowledge of how to live as one. Several of us died in the first year as we were picked off by hunters or farmers.“

"That must have been horrible. How many brothers did you have?”

“Thirty-two.”

Val’s mouth dropped open in shock.

Deucalion laughed at her expression but realized he needed to clarify. “My mother died in childbirth and my father remarried several times, in case you’re wondering. With the volume of heirs they were churning out, his other wives didn’t last long.”

“That’s… way too many kids. Even divided among multiple women.”

“I won’t lie, they would have likely agreed with you. But my father didn’t care, he was building a kingdom, and he needed sons to found towns for that kingdom. Sons who thought like he did.”

“He seems like he was, um… obsessive. And possibly narcissistic.”

“An apt analysis. Fortunately for the world, he’s long gone.”

“Do you…” Val poked at her food as she chose her words carefully. “Do you think that maybe that’s where your personality during your blindness came from? Like something learned long ago that was long buried?”

“You know, now that you mention it… maybe. I was much more violent than I remember him being, but the drive was similar.”

Val nodded, happy she hadn’t offended him.

“But that’s strange, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“I spent so long trying not to be like him, to do things to make others’ lives better instead of for my own glory, and I ended up becoming like him anyway.” Deucalion became quiet, contemplative. He supposed the old saying about trees and falling apples was correct in his case.

“But you weren’t like him for so much of your life.”

“True.”

“And you’re not like him now.”

“Also true.”

“So I think your slip up, while not really okay, in the grand scheme of things is at least forgivable.”

Deucalion ate a bite of his food and nodded as he chewed.

“And you spent all of that time purposely not killing people, and trying to stop it within your own kind, so I think that says more about you than whatever weird momentary influence your father or whatever else might have had.”

“I think you’re right.”

They were both quiet. Deucalion was now deeply worried. What if in his blindness and rage, he had really become like his father? Vain, selfish, and with a complete disregard for what anyone else wanted? It seemed that he had channeled his father’s disregard for other human’s autonomy when he mercilessly pressured the other Alphas to join him, treating them as if they were tools to be used instead of humans with their own minds. Was it just the injury or was it learned? Maybe it was innate. Maybe it was just him.

Val desperately wanted to change the subject but couldn’t think of anything else.

“So… are any of your brothers still alive?”

Deucalion snapped out of it. “Uh, just two that I’m fairly sure aren’t dead yet, but I haven’t spoken to them in… something like 200 years.”

“Did you have a falling out?”

“With one of them, yes. I simply don’t know where the other one is. Asia, I think. I don’t know if I would be able to find either of them at this point.”

“How did you get from thirty-six brothers to two?”

“Time, mostly. And the fact that regular humans can’t stop warring doesn’t help. Not that we’re any better.”

“Do you ever miss having them around?”

“Not really. The majority of them were much more like my dad than I would have liked.”

_Back to his dad,_ Val thought. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Anyway, 'The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb’, is it not? I’ve always preferred the families I made to the one I was born with.” He said and smiled reassuringly.

Val returned the smile.


	8. Finding Clues and Talking to Foxes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finding Clues and Talking to Foxes 
> 
> Word count: 5,239  
> Edited: 15 July 2018

Stiles was once again laying on his bed, holding his phone over him, studying for his art history class. His phone buzzed, making him drop it on his face, right on the bridge of his nose. He sighed and swiped the screen to answer without even looking at the name.

“Ow,” he said into the phone as he held onto his face.

“What?”

Stiles looked at the screen to see who was calling him. “Oh, hey Scott.”

“What’s ‘ow’?”

“I was studying when you called and dropped my phone on my face.”

“Ah. Sorry, buddy.”

Stiles sighed. You wouldn’t think something as small as a phone would hurt so much and yet…

“So what’s up? Besides trying to kill me I mean.”

“I texted you earlier to see if you heard anything about Val from Malia, but you didn’t answer.”

“Oh, sorry, the studying. She called me when she got to Titan and told me she didn’t see her at all, but she was going to see if the bouncer or the band knew anything.”

“You haven’t heard from her since then?”

“No… wait, maybe I missed a text from her.” Stiles put Scott on speaker and navigated to his text messages.

“Does the app not let notifications get through or something?”

“It does but I keep looking at them and thinking that I’ll answer it in a bit and then I get carried away studying.”

“That’s good at least. Weren’t you failing that class?”

“Yeah. But because I did so well on the last test Mrs. Teasdale said I can take a makeup test for the first three, and if I get a high enough grade she’ll count it as a passing for those tests.”

“Hey, that’s awesome.”

“Mhm… okay I got three texts from her, I’ll read them to you.”

“Shoot.”

“The first says: 'Talked to the bouncer, he says hi, but he hasn’t seen her and the owner of the club is getting worried because her band is the biggest draw.’”

“He said hi to who? You?”

“I guess so, I only spoke to him once.”

“He’s nice I guess, but that’s not good news.”

“The second one says: 'The band says they haven’t seen her either, but she texted the guitarist that something came up and they’ll have to play without her for awhile. When they tried to ask her how long she never answered back, but she has a habit of turning off her phone when she wants to be left alone.’ And then in parentheses it says, 'Brian seems pissed that he actually has to set up and asked if I wanted to be their roadie.’ Poor Brian,” Stiles added sarcastically.

“Who’s Brian?”

“The lead guitarist. The tall guy.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, so that’s also not good. Scott replied with a sigh. "What’s the last one?”

“Just that she was going to stick around on the off chance that Val happened to show up– I should probably text her back.”

“So that’s a bust.”

“Yeah,” Stiles responded as he typed a quick message to Malia. “Have you had any luck?”

“We think we’re going to call it quits for the night.  Liam is tired and Kira wants to get some sword training in for the night. Apparently we’re taking up all her free time,” he said jokingly in Kira’s direction.

“Well, when do you think I train? At school? I normally train before I go to sleep and I haven’t had any time since this whole thing started,” Stiles could hear Kira say in the distance. “You don’t just like… grow sword skills, you have to keep honing them.”

Stiles laughed, “Okay. Hey, since tomorrow is Saturday do you want to take me to the places you saw the thing already? Maybe we can find something in the daylight.”

“Yeah, I guess so. It’s not like we have any other leads.”

“Okay, let’s leave my house maybe… 9?

"AM?”

“Obviously.”

“Sure. See you then.”

“Bye.”

With that, Stiles went back to studying, opening up the app and flicking through the digital flashcards with greater proficiency than before. Just then, his phone buzzed and before he could comprehend what was happening he dropped it on his face.

“Oh come on!”

Scott and Kira dropped Liam off at his house and they both watched as he sleepily opened the front door and shuffled inside. Scott pulled away from the curb and began the drive to Kira’s house.

“So I’m just dropping you off at your house then?” Scott asked as he turned to Kira.

“Yeah. Unless you want to watch me train.”

Scott couldn’t figure out if she was joking or being serious. He’d never seen her train, he thought maybe it was personal or something. “Um… can I?”

“Oh, I was kidding.”

“Oh.”

“…Would you want to?”

“I– uh– yeah, it might be cool. I barely get to see you swordfight, and even then, I’m never looking at you, I’m always looking at who we’re fighting. It might be cool to see you train.”

“Did… you ever think about it before I suggested it?”

“Once or twice. I thought maybe it was super personal or maybe your parents just didn’t want anyone in the house while training was happening.”

“Um, maybe when my mom and I are training because she thinks it’s really hilarious to ambush me out of nowhere before I’ve even eaten breakfast.”

Scott laughed. “Really?”

“Yeah. I think my dad made a joke about Kung Fu movies having senseis doing that and she decided to run with it.”

“Ahh, so he’s the one you should be mad at.”

Kira laughed. “Probably.”

Scott smiled. “So are you just training by yourself tonight?”

“Yeah. The stuff I do before bed is just brushing up on Shinkendo technique.”

“Shinkendo?”

“A school of Japanese swordsmanship.”

“Oh, so… I can watch that?”

“Sure.”

After saying hi to Kira’s parents, they made their way to the former large office that was now a mini dojo.

“Wow, you really went all out on this room,” Scott said as he looked at everything.

“Yeah, mom’s idea. 'If we’re going to have a dojo, we’re going to have a proper dojo’,” Kira imitated. “My dad put it together in a few weekends.”

Scott chuckled. He noticed some objects on the table against the wall, what looked like a cotton ball on a stick and a small closed tin. “What’s this?”

“Sword cleaning supplies. Don’t touch them.”

Scott put his hands in his pockets. “Sorry.”

“The oil is a little messy.”

They both stood awkwardly for a moment.

“So…” Kira started, “I guess I’ll train?”

“Yeah, go ahead. I’ll sit against the wall so I’m not in the way.” He did as he said and sat down against the wall near one of the corners so he was as far out of the way as possible. Kira rearranged some objects on the floor to afford herself more foot space and then set up what Scott thought was a bundle of bamboo on a kind of podium.

Truthfully, Scott didn’t understand what he was looking at. Kira seemed to be hacking at the air, repeating the same motion over and over. He wondered if he was allowed to ask what she was doing, but he was afraid of breaking her concentration so he kept his mouth shut. Although he didn’t understand the exercises, he thought she looked strong. She looked powerful and graceful, and that made her beautiful to him. He resolved to google ‘shinkendo’ later and see if there were any youtube videos he could watch so he could understand what she was doing without having to pester her with a thousand questions as she was training.

Kira focused on her training. As she focused she could feel a kind of clarity wash over her, the pure sense of purpose, of knowing exactly what she was doing, of the muscle memory taking over, and of the—

_You’re doing that wrong._

Kira turned to Scott, “What?”

“What?”

“Did you say something?”

“No.”

Kira looked around. There was no one else in the room and she was pretty sure it wasn’t Scott’s voice she heard. “Are you sure?”

“I didn’t say anything. I was watching you.”

Kira turned to continue practicing her form. Her sword sliced through the air—

_That’s still wrong._

Rather than ask a second time, Kira turned to face Scott. She pretended it was a purposeful movement that went with the other moves she was working on, but really she wanted to keep an eye on him. She continued cutting at the air as she felt her—

_Stop swinging your sword like a bat._

Kira looked at Scott who was simply viewing her. She inhaled deeply. She knew the voice was now obviously in her head but she wasn’t yet sure how to react.

_Turn away from him._

Kira continued facing Scott as she now pretended to practice.

_Just do as I ask._

Kira pretended that her practicing needed her to face in the other direction and swung wide in order to spin herself around.

_You seem worried. You can make a guess as to who I am if you like._

Kira frowned.

_I’m the kitsune._

Kira froze.

Her lack of movement worried Scott. “Did you hurt yourself?”

Kira spun back around. “You know what? I think I’m just going to go to sleep. I keep screwing up, I think I might be too tired to train. Do you mind?”

“No,” Scott said and yawned. “I think I should probably get some sleep anyway.”

“I’ll walk you out.”

At the door Kira kissed Scott and watched him walk back to his car before closing the door and rushing back to the miniature dojo. She stood in silence for a moment as she waited for… she wasn’t sure what.

_He seems nice. And he’s cute and an Alpha, good for you._

“Okay,” Kira whispered. “My dating life aside, what do you want?”

The voice came through again, she hadn’t realized it at first but it was in Japanese. Kira wondered how she was able to understand it considering she hadn’t practiced in a while due to the finding of the bodies. She marveled at it just the same, the voice was smooth and velvety, comforting and unearthly at the same time. _I thought that was obvious._

“To… to train me?”

_Kira Yukimura, I am the kitsune. I am neither male nor female nor anything in between. I am neither light nor dark. I am the grey ambiguity of life, the neutrality of nature, the chaos and the order. I am the personified form of thunder and lighting, and I am as old as both. You, dear child - are swinging your sword like a bat and it annoys me._

Kira was taken aback by the last sentence. “So… wait, I thought we were the same being. Like how a werewolf is just a werewolf, I thought I was the kitsune.”

_Yes, and no, it began. I am a spirit and I am tied to you. I can’t function without you but you certainly could without me._

“So you’re like a parasite.”

_Think of us as a lichen. A lichen is an alga that is surrounded by fungi. The algae create nutrients the fungus can’t make itself, and the fungus helps the alga to exist outside of an aquatic environment._

“I thought the latest view on lichen was that the algae were basically a slave to the fungi.”

The kitsune laughed gently, something Kira felt more than she heard. _If you wish to think of it that way. Just like the algae you don’t need me, but having me around does afford some benefits. The interpretation is up to you: as the algae, do you think that being able to be in a terrestrial environment is important?_

Kira knew the kitsune was right, being able to help her friends and save people was a good thing.  Yet, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was in a contract she couldn’t get out of. “So… it’s like I’m possessed?”

_A kitsune is always born from a kitsune, we can’t be made like werewolves can. Where the werewolf, the banshee, the kanema, are the things that they are, you are more complicated–_

“It’s possession. Like the way the nogitsune possessed Stiles.”

_…something like that, yes. But the nogitsune takes their power to a dark place._

Kira thought for a moment. “Derek said that he could see my kitsune form with his wolf eyes because I was young and hadn’t learned to mask it yet.”

_That is something we need to work on._

“Wait, is that why I haven’t been able to run lately? When I first found out I was a kitsune I could run abnormally fast, now it’s like I’m running in waist high water.”

_I might have put a damper on your powers to get you to realize we are technically separate._

“How was that supposed to make me realize that?”

_Well, if you did the meditation regimen your father recommended, I would have been able to speak with you sooner. You’ve been so unfocused because of the bodies that I couldn’t open a channel of communication._

“Oh…”

_But that’s in the past now. I would prefer to work on your form and get you to use a sword properly so you don’t get us killed._

“I haven’t gotten us killed yet.”

_Dumb luck, more than anything else. You are overpowered easily and rarely hit anything. Eventually your inexperience will catch up with you._

Kira was quiet. She wanted to defend herself but she wondered if the kitsune would see it as backtalk. “So…” Kira said as she took up her sword again. “What should I do?”

_We will begin with sheathing and unsheathing. You need to start over._

“This place looks so different in daylight,” Stiles said as he looked around.

“We also haven’t been here in almost a month,” Scott responded as he walked ahead.

“Well… yeah. That too.”

By the buzz of his phone, Scott knew they arrived where they found the first body. He stopped and turned around to Stiles. “Easier than finding the Nematon,” he shrugged.

“Yeah, but will being here actually be helpful is the question.”

Scott nodded and put his phone in his pocket.

They stood there silently for a moment as they both looked around. Stiles then awkwardly clambered into the ditch the body was found in, while Scott deftly jumped over the edge.

“Shut up,” Stiles said as he brushed leaves and dirt from his clothing.

Scott smiled.

They both viewed the crime scene, or rather, lack of a crime scene. It had been nearly a month since the body was found and nature had seen fit to reclaim the area. Stiles crouched and moved some leaves around with his hands hoping to find… anything, really.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

“It really doesn’t help that we barely have any information that could tell us where to look.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said and sighed. “The deputies have been all over this place, so if they didn’t find anything we probably won’t either.”

Scott nodded.

Stiles stood and nudged some leaves around with his foot. “I was hoping that maybe we’d find the one weird supernatural thing that they missed…” he sighed again, “…but maybe not. There really is nothing here. Just leaves.”

Scott grunted in the affirmative.

Stiles continued to push leaves around with his feet, hoping he’d unearth something and make their going back to the scene worthwhile. At the same time he felt like he was wasting time, it seemed like a new body could be found at any moment although the last one was found months ago. He wondered if it was possible to waste time when there were no leads to investigate.

Scott was watching him, and had an inkling of what was going through his head. “Do you want to check the second spot?”

“Hmm?” Stiles asked coming back from his thoughts. “Oh, yeah. Why not?”

The walk wasn’t too long, though the silence made it seem longer. Scott was somewhat worried for his friend. Normally they would have at least have an idea of what they were up against, but with two bodies and as many weeks having passed since finding the second one they still had no clue. And now they had no clue and a returned Deucalion. He reminded himself that he was one of the two that let Deucalion go, hoping he could return to the way he was prior to his injury, but the fact that he was now - Dating Val? Scott thought to himself. I mean, they’re both adults but that just seems weird, - the one person they suspected could have perpetrated the attacks seemed a bit strange. He felt the proof was obvious, Malia was with Val when they found the creature, but what if that was Peter? No, it didn’t smell like Peter. It smelled like… I don’t know. It didn’t smell like him or Val, so… we really don’t know what we’re looking for. Scott suddenly felt that he and Stiles were on the same page.

“Isn’t this it?” Stiles asked as he looked at the coordinates on his phone.

“Hmm?’ Scott looked up, now it was his turn to return to reality. He took his phone out and affirmed what Stiles asked. "Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

“Thinking?”

“Yeah.”

“…About how lost we are? Not in the woods, but in this whole situation.”

“Yeah, kind of. It’s starting to get to me. The second body was months ago [?] and we haven’t had any hits from any of the bestiaries we’ve looked through, Deucalion’s back but at least he seems like he’s not out for revenge anymore, Val’s also back and she was the one supernatural that matched up at all but the creature doesn’t smell like her, and I spoke to Deaton yesterday and he still has no idea what it was but when I said the creature had 'claws’ he corrected me with 'talons’, and I’m not even sure what the difference is.”

“Isn’t it… claws are to mammals as talons are to birds?”

“Is it?”

“I think so.”

Scott thought for a moment. “Oh… so we’re looking for a bird?”

“Maybe?”

Scott was quiet again before shaking it off. “Whatever, let’s add it to the list of things we have no idea about and look around here.”

“Will do,” Stiles said as he viewed the area. Again, the leaves had completely covered anything that could possibly be a clue and Stiles found himself absent-mindedly kicking at them.

Scott was somewhere between watching and completely zoning out. He didn’t like not knowing what they were up against and he liked having no leads even less. As his eyes glazed over and his brain became quieter, a noise pulled him back to the present.

_Tup_

“Huh?” Stiles questioned and kicked his foot again.

_Tup tup_

Stiles looked at Scott expecting that he would still be in a daze, but their eyes locked instead. Scott looked at Stiles curiously and took a step closer.

Stiles crouched and brushed the leaves aside with his hands until he found what it was that his shoe hit.

“What is that?” Scott asked.

Stiles studied it, turning it over. “I learned about this when I was studying for my test.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Go you.”

“It’s a Fedoskino miniature.”

“What does that mean?”

“A miniature is like… before photographs people would have a tiny painting made of someone they love so they could carry it around with them. Fedoskino miniatures would have built up layers of lacquer and often depicted rural life.”

“Can I see it?”

Stiles handed him the miniature and thought aloud, “What the hell is a tiny Russian painting doing in the woods in California?”

“Baba Yaga is in town?”

Stiles laughed, “What’s a Baba Yaga?”

“I saw it in a movie Kira made me watch. She was like this Russian witch or whatever who had a house that had chicken legs.”

“Sounds intense,” Stiles said as he raised an eyebrow.

Scott widened his eyes as he nodded. “So was the movie.”

Stiles chuckled. He knew Kira liked foreign horror movies and that some of them were more than a little weird so he didn’t want to push it.

“So..” Scott contemplated. “Is this significant? Is this something that would be expensive or important?”

“I don’t think so. It might have more emotional significance than anything else.”

“What’s painted on it?”

Stiles stood next to Scott as they both squinted and tried to understand the tiny picture. “It looks like… is that a bird? I can’t tell if that’s a bird or a person.”

“Those _are_ feathers, right?”

“Looks like it.”

“What’s this other thing? Is this a person?”

“It might be.”

“I can’t tell what they’re doing. It’s pretty damaged.”

“I think they’re holding hands.”

They stood in silence as they continued looking at the painting.

“I think…” Stiles said tentatively. “Huh.”

“What?”

“If I’m remembering my Language in Art paper notes correctly, I think this is supposed to be like, a love scene.”

“A sex scene? Stiles, I don’t know what you and Malia get up to but–”

“Not a sex scene. Like… it’s a scene that was painted to commemorate love.”

“So… it’s the love between a bird or person and a regular person.”

“It might be a mythological creature that’s being used for a metaphor or something. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned about art in the time I’ve been taking that class seriously, it’s that we as a species like metaphors and saying things with art in complicated ways.”

“So then… what is this creature?”

“I have no idea.”

They continued to stare at the miniature as they tried to figure out what the bird-like creature could be.

“Do you think Deaton would know?” Scott finally asked.

“I was going to say Lydia should look at it.”

They stood in silence for a moment.

“Maybe both of them–”

“Yeah, maybe both of them should see it.”

“How much ink do you think you used?” Mason asked as he organized the printed copies of the bestiaries.

“I prefer not to think about it because if I do I’m going to become annoyed at how much money I spent on ink instead of something fun like clothes.”

Mason smiled.

“Anyway, I suppose it doesn’t matter. We were going to have to have a real library anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“We could never rely on only one bestiary. The Argents were from France and encountered mostly central European creatures, we were going to need other books to tell us what to expect from creatures from other countries and continents.”

“Yeah. I guess this kind of makes you like, our Oracle.”

Lydia paused for a moment. “Of Delphi or DC?”

“DC.”

“I’ll accept that. As long as nothing like The Killing Joke happens to me.” Lydia said with raised eyebrows as she sat and looked through her notes.

Mason laughed nervously, he didn’t mean to imply such a thing. “We’re here. I’m sure nothing like that would ever happen.”

Lydia smiled.

Having finished organizing the bestiaries, Mason sat at the table as well. “So, what do we have so far?”

“Here are my notes. There seems to be surprisingly few folkloric creatures that involve noise or music or song.”

“Any idea why?”

“I have a personal hypothesis that maybe most of these ideas started by someone not seeing something correctly, possibly from a distance, but there’s no way to test that. I think that it might be harder to mishear something than it is to mis-see.”

Mason nodded. It made sense to him.

“Anyway,” Lydia continued, “After going over what we have there still wasn’t much. I think I’m going to have to look for more books anyway.”

“I’ll take up a collection for ink money.”

Lydia laughed. “Really though, I have gone through so much ink– and paper! These are _already_ double-sided,” she said as she showed Mason something he already knew.

Mason laughed.

Lydia smiled and put the printed books back on the table. “Hey, thanks for helping me out with this.”

“It’s no problem. I know I’m not as much help as a werewolf or your corpse-finding powers, but I do want to help.”

“Hey, Stiles is human too. Both of you are smart and resourceful, you could never be burdens if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I know but, Stiles has already proven himself.”

“And? You were right there next to me trying to fight off that berserker, remember?”

“Yeah…”

“Listen,” Lydia said as she put her hand on Mason’s. “I know that you still wish that Liam told you he was a werewolf earlier so you could have known what was going on, but being a human when he isn't… isn’t a bad thing.”

Mason nodded quietly.

“And hey, you can walk across mountain ash. Liam can’t do that.”

Mason smiled broadly. “That is true.”

“With a pack as varied as we are… each of us fill a kind of role or niche. We’re all important.”

Mason thought to himself for a moment. “Yeah. That makes sense.”

Lydia smiled. “Besides, it’s nice to have another person who can help me with research when everyone else is out running around after supernaturals.”

“I wouldn’t even think you’d need help. I mean, you _are_ kind of a genius.”

Lydia looked at him somewhat disapprovingly. “And I didn’t get that way by sitting around not looking things up when I should.”

Lydia’s phone rang and she dug it out of her bag.

“Who is it?” Mason asked.

“Scott,” Lydia replied and answered. “Hello? Yeah.”

Lydia hit the speakerphone button and put the phone on the table.

“–I just don’t see a point in you having to explain it to Mason so just put me on speakerphone… you already did it didn’t you?”

“Yep.”

Mason smiled and tried not to laugh.

Scott sighed. “We found something were the second body was found.”

“Oh?” Lydia and Mason said in unison.

“Yeah, it’s a small painting called a Fedoskino miniature.”

“Stiles, have you been studying?” Lydia asked coyly.

“Yeah– thanks for helping me figure it out.”

“I’m glad it worked out for you. Can you send us a picture of the miniature?”

Mason’s phone beeped.

“I already did,” Stiles answered.

Mason and Lydia looked at each other for a moment as Mason looked for his phone. His three friends waited as he dug it out of his bag and opened the picture. “Huh,” he showed it to Lydia who echoed his feeling.

“Hmm,” she hummed as she looked at it. “That looks like some sort of bird person…”

“Can I tell you what I think it is? I am sort of an Art History expert now,” Stiles said in jest.

Lydia and Mason looked at each other, smiled, and rolled their eyes simultaneously. “Sure,” Lydia said, “Regale us with your wisdom of the arts, oh beneficent god of the humanities, Stiles. What do you think it is?”

Scott giggled as Stiles sighed.

“Okay, so, it’s called a Fedoskino miniature, they’re from Russia. They normally show scenes of peasant life, or a kind of carriage set up with three horses called a 'troika’, but this is showing… a human and either some kind of mythological being or a mythological being that’s being used as a metaphor. I think it’s portraying love between the two figures.”

Lydia peered at the picture on the phone, wishing she could see the box itself. “Mmm, I think I’ll have to agree with you. The pose seems to be portraying love from the creature to the human.”

Mason looked over her shoulder at the picture and observed, “They’re both women.”

“Yeah,” Stiles and Lydia said in unison.

“When is this from?”

“Fedoskino could have started sometime in the 1700s, but I don’t know when this is from,” Stiles replied.

“Oh,” Lydia interjected. “The dynamo of the art world doesn’t know?”

Mason suppressed a giggle.

“Well it’s not like I work for Antiques Roadshow or something.”

“Anyway…” Mason said as he brought the conversation back to what he was going to say. “If it’s old and it’s showing love between two women, that’s pretty progressive. Don’t you think?”

“Yes, I suppose it is.” Lydia said as she thought a moment.

“We’re going to take it to Deaton to see if he knows what the creature is, but we thought we’d show you first,” Scott finally said.

“Do you want us to meet you there? I’d like to get a better look at it,” Lydia replied.

“Good idea. We’ll be there in maybe… 45 minutes? We have to get out of this forest first.”

“Okay, we’ll go there now and show him the picture and see what he can glean from it.”

“Alright. Then when you have the real thing you, Deaton, and Mason can all put your heads together.”

“Me?” Mason asked. “I don’t know anything about Russian art.”

“Maybe not, but you’re smart and you know things that Deaton and Lydia don’t. Three heads are better than two, am I right?”

Mason couldn’t help but look somewhat shocked.

Lydia smiled and nudged him with her elbow. “You coming?”

“Uh, yeah. If you think I should.”

“Good,” Scott said. “We’ll meet the both of you there.”

“I thought you said 45 minutes?” Lydia asked as Scott and Stiles walked into the back room of Deaton’s veterinary practice.

Scott smiled. “Took less time than I thought.”

“Scott smelled our trail so getting out took about 10 minutes instead of 20,” Stiles said with a laugh.

“Do you have the miniature?” Deaton asked.

Scott placed it on the table.

Deaton picked it up and viewed it as he leaned on the table with his elbows. He turned the miniature over in his hands, looking at it from all angles and allowed the light to reflect off the varnish.

Scott, Stiles, Lydia, Mason all exchanged looks as they waited.

Deaton 'hmm’-ed to himself as he thought. He walked over to the magnifying glass equipped with a super bright LED light and switched it on. Sitting, he peered at it through the glass.

Lydia went back to her laptop which was on the table, and had several browser tabs open for 'Fedoskino miniature’ and related search terms to do with the manner of painting. She began to make notes of what they knew about the miniature and the case. Stiles joined her on that side of the table and read her notes as she wrote them.

After a few quiet minutes of deep concentration, Deaton turned off the light and spun around. “Well,” he started, “it does appear to be a real Fedoskino miniature. Under the magnifying glass, you can see the layers of paint that were built up that gives it the dimensional effect it has. And what Lydia told me you’ve discerned so far seems to be correct. This seems to be some kind of commemoration of a couple; a wedding perhaps.”

Everyone nodded at Deaton’s affirmation.

“It would be nice if it had the names of the subjects on it, similar to getting wedding bands that have the couple’s names or even just their initials on them. Without it, we have no idea who exactly is painted here.”

“Could one of them actually be a winged creature?” Lydia asked.

“We have no way of knowing but… I’d say it could be possible.”

Everyone sighed.

“Of course,” Lydia said flatly.


	9. Honesty is the Best Policy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The smut is finally here!
> 
> Part of the chapter is some of the first stuff I wrote for this fic. Not the sex scene, strangely enough. Most of them got written later after a few white russians...
> 
> Anyway, hide your eyes if you're young. And for those who aren't, I hope you enjoy ;)
> 
> Word count: 4408  
> Edited: 15 July 2018

One morning, two weeks to the day after she and Deucalion had met, Val exited her room to find a book with a note taped to it balanced on the back of the couch. Clearly it had been put there for her, and balanced in a way that she would see it immediately upon exiting her room.

"Duke?" She called but received no answer.

She picked up the book and turned it over in her hands; it was leather-bound and heavier than it looked.

She pulled the note off and opened it:

"Went to the store.  
I left breakfast for you on the counter.  
I'll answer any questions you have when I get back.  
-D"

She walked into the kitchen with the book and found a plate covered with a towel. She removed it, finding a pair of sausages and a few slices of toast that were growing cold. _I guess we were out of everything,_ she thought as she sat down. She took a bite out of the toast and opened the book.

Deucalion hadn't just been trying to deter her from asking about the book when he described it as disjointed and more like a journal, it really was. The first fifteen or so pages began with "For posterity" and were a rough estimation of his life and everything that happened to him before moving to the US in the late 50s and starting his first American pack. Val skimmed through his long history with the Hales, Argents, Scott, and the Darach on account of him already having told her. After that, a page was folded over as if to make way for new things. The part of the book that commenced here was dated and contained essays about ideas of his, random thoughts, the odd dream, opinions and criticisms of the books he was reading and movies he watched. Sometimes he wrote every day, sometimes he went weeks without making an entry.

She read about his leaving Beacon Hills after being allowed to live, what he was deciding on doing with his life, an inventory of how he spent his time before he was blinded and then an in depth assessment of what made that version of him such a lover of peace and justice, his coming back to Beacon Hills and taking up residence in the cabin, and his desire to help Scott and his friends though he wasn't sure they would want his help yet.

She came to the latest entry and was surprised by what was written. On the night he found her he wrote about the strangeness of their meeting and tried to list what he remembered about huldras and compared it to what he learned from her. He wrote about how they talked with such familiarity as if they were already friends, and how he felt he might be able to tell her anything. He wrote about how painfully interesting he found her and how he wanted to be near her. How he didn't understand why he felt the way he did when they had only known each other for a few hours, and how strangely saddened he was when he had angered her.

_Did he do this on purpose? He doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would do something sneaky like that. There's no way he would have--_

The door opened.

"I'm back!" Deucalion chimed happily.

Val put the journal down and stood as he walked into the kitchen with two bags of groceries.

"Want to help me put things away?" He asked with a broad grin.

Val laughed nervously. "It's not like you have to ask at this point."

Val quietly put groceries into the cabinets and refrigerator as she decided what she wanted to ask and how she wanted to ask it, but Deucalion beat her to the punch.

"Are you okay? Did something in my journal upset you?"

"Not upset..." Val paused and looked for the words. "Why did you let me read it if you wrote what you did about me?"

Deucalion appeared confused for a moment before a wave of realization washed over his features. "Shit," he covered his face with both hands. "I remembered all the other shit I had written but I hadn't touched it since we met so I forgot I wrote anything about you."

Val viewed him silently.

He took his face out of his hands, "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for you to read that. If I remembered it was in there I would have ripped it out."

Stalling, Val took something out of the grocery bag and put it on a shelf in one of the cabinets. She closed the cabinet door slowly as Deucalion waited for her reaction.

Having found the words she wanted, she turned back around. "Why were you so interested in me after just a few hours? You told me you were the next day, but it was so strange."

Deucalion seemed unable to speak.

"Aren't we friends now? Tell me."

"I suppose... I imagine it was not unlike how a schoolboy feels about his first crush. It was like... my brain decided it felt a certain way about you and I was just along for the ride."

Val furrowed her brow. "Do you still feel the same way?"

Deucalion looked away.

"Oh," Val said quietly.

"I'm sorry. I won't act on it. And if you want to leave because of it, I won't be offended."

He watched her with trepidation as she silently put away the last of the groceries. He thought he heard one heavy _'thunk'_ from her heartbeat, but other than that, her pulse was even. He had no idea what she was thinking but he hoped desperately that she wouldn't leave.

Val turned around, "So do you want to play cards or watch a movie?"

Deucalion smiled softly, "We can do whatever you want."

"I think another movie. Your pick."

* * *

 

After politely arguing for several minutes in which Val insisted Deucalion could pick the movie but he didn't budge from his stance that she could pick, they agreed on Metropolis. As Deucalion readied the movie Val collapsed on the couch, smack in the middle instead of her usual spot at one end. She was tired from the argument that was basically them trying to out-nice each other.

Deucalion turned and was surprised to see her sitting where she was. "Take up the whole couch why don't you."

"If it bothers you I'll move."

"No, no, stay there if you're comfortable. We don't always have to sit so far away from each other."

Val considered this as he smiled and sat next to her. His leg was against hers and she hoped he didn't hear her heart pounding. But despite how majestic and sweeping the score of the movie was as the opening titles played and the lines that cut across the screen illuminated the movie's title into existence, her heart was all she could hear.

Deucalion hoped that she wasn't hiding a secret ability to hear as well as a Werewolf did, because if she could she would hear his heart thundering against his ribs, threatening to break free from the confines of his rib cage. He tried to act as naturally as possible but he was sure his body language betrayed him.

They were both frozen in place, afraid to move in case they betrayed their inner desires. They sat this way for the entirety of the movie, both of them hyper focused on the screen to avoid thinking of anything else. As the last intertitle faded from the screen and the music died down, Deucalion decided to break the silence.

"So... we are sitting much closer than we usually do."

"Mhm."

"Is it... were you trying to tell me something by sitting in the middle of the couch? Or were you just asserting territorial dominance?"

Val laughed nervously. "This is just kind of where I landed."

"Ah." Now Deucalion laughed nervously. "I thought maybe..."

Val looked at him dead in the eyes, short-circuiting his brain and making him unable think. His mouth lulled open and he struggled for words.

Her face took on a pained expression. "Why are you so nice to me?"

"Am I not allowed to be nice?"

"I mean-- you have these kind of… romantic feelings towards me, and I get that… but why?"

"I told you I don't know. It's just a feeling I have."

"People who get close to me... they either die or leave me without explanation. I'm just letting you know that if you want to pursue this, that is what's probably going to happen."

"...Do..."

"What?"

"Do you kill them?"

"No, I don't kill them! Why would I tell you I kill my lovers and friends? They always die. Mysteriously. One was trampled by his own horse which was never a nervous animal before, one was poisoned, one went missing and was never found, one was strangled in her own home..." Exasperated, Val sighed.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I just have rotten luck. Or I'm cursed or something."

"Life includes accidents. We've both been around for millennia, we've had a lot of time to rack up our fair share of them."

Val shook her head, "It's all recent though. Within the past five hundred-or-so years. All of a sudden, I can't keep anyone safe anymore."

"Is it every single person you've gotten close to over the years?"

"No, but--"

"They're probably just accidents."

"I know you're trying to at least make me _feel_ better – like I'm not the one who is somehow causing these things – if not actually trying to talk some sense into me, but they don't feel like accidents when they happen."

"Most likely," Deucalion said as he took her hands in his, "they were just accidents. And you're only skeptical of them being so because you loved each person so much."

Val shook her head. "I just can't shake the feeling that they don’t _happen_ so much as they're _caused_."

"I know. I think I would feel the same way."

They sat quietly as Deucalion held her hands. They were strong and warm, and she felt more at ease than she had in a long time.

"When you said 'if you want to pursue this' what did you mean, exactly?"

Val smiled but remained quiet.

"Does that mean--"

His sentence was cut off when Val pulled him towards her by his shirt and kissed him. Deucalion touched her face gently with one hand and wrapped his other arm around her, pulling her closer.

After a kiss that felt like it went on forever, they pulled their faces apart. They looked at each other, breathless and eyes heavily lidded.

"I'm glad to find you feel the same way."

"I'd be lying if I tried to pretend I didn't."

"So you did feel something for me this whole time?"

Val tilted her head coyly. "Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Maybe a little."

“Only a little?”

Val chuckled softly, “A very little.”

Deucalion touched his head to Val's and grasped her hands. "I thought it was just me. I thought we were just friends and nothing more. I had no idea you felt so... tenderly towards me."

Val smiled warmly and pushed a stray hair away from his face, "Well, you are a very attractive young man."

Deucalion chuckled, "'Young.'"

"Compared to me you are."

They both smiled.

"But you've been nothing but kind to me. Besides your stupid question the first night, you've never been mean to me--"

"I'm still sorry about that."

"Don't be. I told you, even our own kind assume I'm dangerous and don't trust me... but you never did that. I could tell that your guard was never up around me and you never treated me as if I was a threat who needed to be watched." Val sighed. "Deucalion, if I were a werewolf, I would be an Omega, and it wouldn't be of my own volition."

"The people you've met feared you that much?"

"My lore is what it is. Wouldn't you be afraid if you hadn't gotten to know me?"

"No."

Val smiled sweetly. "Well that's just you."

They both chuckled. As their mirth subsided they gazed into each other's eyes in blissful silence until Deucalion said, "I'd like very much to kiss you again."

Val moved closer so their lips were almost touching. "Go right ahead."

And he kissed her.

Everything was at first passionate and slow embracing that gradually became more desperate and hungry. Their breathing matched up and became rhythmic and heavy. Deucalion pulled her into him and held her in his strong arms, warm muscles encircling her as he kissed her mercilessly. Val slid her hand under Deucalion's shirt trying to grasp for the button on his pants, causing him to pull away.

"Is that where you want this to go?" He asked, his pupils blown in a look of shock at his own cessation. He breathed heavy as he leveled his gaze.

"Um, yes?" Val replied, somewhat confused. "I thought that was where this was going."

Deucalion stood and scooped her off of the couch, causing her to squeal with girlish glee.

"What are you doing?"

"Moving this to the bedroom. I think our first time should be in a bed, don't you?"

Val threw her head back and laughed as Deucalion, smiling, carried her back to his bedroom. He tossed her onto the bed and she giggled as she almost bounced off.

"Geez! You're much more dashingly Byronic than I originally thought."

Deucalion laughed, "Well, I do spend most of my time brooding."

Val returned the laugh, "You've discovered my weakness."

Deucalion got onto the bed and settled himself between her legs. He kissed her and entwined his fingers in her hair. They lay there for a while, just kissing. Despite his showy romanticism in getting them to the bedroom, Deucalion was entirely too nervous to move forward.

Sensing his reluctance and impatient to get to the next stage, Val finally said, "Take off my shirt."

More than willing to take direction at this point, Deucalion obeyed. He could feel her smooth skin under his palms as he slid her shirt up and pulled it over her head. His smile dropped somewhat when his eyes found what had been hidden by her dress when they met, and by his shirts this whole time. A scar, almost the size of his palm, marred the skin over her heart. The middle of it was discolored as if it were still new, and it branched out slightly around the edges. He touched it gently, hoping he wouldn't hurt her.

Val who, except for showering, had only worn his shirts for two weeks and had kind of forgotten it was there, answered the question she figured he must be thinking. "Yes, it hurt. And no, I can't tell you what it's from."

Deucalion's attention was finally pulled from her scar and he looked into her eyes. "Why not?"

Val sighed, "The situation that caused it was incredibly painful, and when I say that I don't mean physical pain. I don't want to talk about it right now." Val unhooked her bra and took it off, throwing it at Deucalion playfully.

The bra landed on his face and he tossed it to the floor with a laugh. "You sure know how to change the subject."

"You can try to get me to talk about it, which isn't going to happen, or you can fuck me. Your pick."

Deucalion answered this ultimatum by pulling at her pants, which came off easily due to their being sweatpants, and too large. Off went his shirt, his pants, and her underwear.

Once they were completely naked, his nerves took over again, making him unable to move forward. He felt frozen and unable to will his limbs to do what he knew the both of them wanted. He managed to put his hand on her skin and ran his thumb along the flesh of her hip. The tattoo there, which he thought must be ancient because it didn't look like any modern picture he recognized, was faded; the lines still bold but the once intense black now a dark greenish grey.

Val watched him as he seemed to suddenly become quiet and contemplative.

"...You okay?"

"Hmm?"

"When was the last time you were with someone?"

"Long time ago," he tried not to sound embarrassed. "You?"

"The life of a rock star is what it is."

"You mean you sleep around?"

"Do you have a problem with that?"

"Not at all. But you're clearly going to be better at this than me."

"Well... we don't have to do this if you're not entirely comfortable with it."

"You could never make me uncomfortable just... nervous."

Val sat up and pulled him to her, kissing him. "You don't have to be."

He looked into her eyes for a moment and kissed her.

Once Val's act of mercy calmed him down he could feel it all coming back to him. Where to put his hands, his lips, his tongue. He broke their kiss and moved downwards, planting kisses along her chest and stomach as if leaving breadcrumbs so he could find his way back to her lips. His mouth found her breasts instead, and he teased her with his tongue, delighting as her nipples hardened.

Val watched him intently. She honestly didn't think he would be the kind of man who would care about pleasuring his partner. Not that he seemed selfish, but not many men she had met seemed to care. In her past experiences, even the nicest of men had tended to be uncaring in bed. She suddenly felt bad for lumping him in with such men, she had just figured the odds of him being any different wouldn't be in her favor. She found herself wondering if it was his natural concern for others that drove him, or his particular interest in her.

She didn't have much time to examine the thought further when he spread her legs and parted the slippery cleft between her thighs with his tongue. She gasped and could swear she felt him grin against the soft skin there. He worked his tongue in and out of her slit as he lapped up her juices, working them up and around her clit with deft precision. She gasped again and let herself fall back onto the bed. Her legs rested on his shoulders slack from the surprise of his skill, allowing him to hear her throaty, ragged breaths. His artful tongue would occasionally cause her legs to draw up around his ears as pleasure coursed through her body, causing him to smile to himself.

Deucalion missed the feeling of being pressed against someone else in passionate embrace, to feel like he was melting into someone, to be inside someone. He missed it almost as much as he burned to be inside her. Being with her now, he felt ravenous. He hadn't had a woman in ages but he hadn't forgotten the anatomy. He lost himself in pleasuring her, bringing her to climax only to do it again. It wasn't until the fourth or fifth time that he realized she stifled her moans whenever she came.

He lifted himself up, "Why are you doing that?"

"What?" She asked breathlessly.

Deucalion wiped his face. "Are you covering your own mouth or something? I want to hear you moan as you come, you're ruining it."

"Oh," Val laughed and sat up. "I could have explained earlier but it didn't seem like there was a reason for me to: moans fall into the 'way too melodious for other people's good' category of vocalizations. If I actually were to moan, you'll stop knowing where you are or what your name is."

"What would happen to me?"

"I could make you do anything, but since my brain is focused on wanting you to do things to me..." Val sighed. "You'd keep fucking me, but you won't actually experience it. Like you’re.. comatose but still moving. I’d be a puppeteer pulling your strings."

Deucalion thought for a moment before launching himself at her, deftly landing on his elbows so as not to crush her under his weight. He reached over her to the nightstand and as she followed his arm with her eyes she realized what he was reaching for.

"Your power ruins your life a little bit, doesn't it?"

"Yeah... I'm used to it at this point--"

Val's sentence ended abruptly, with a sharp intake of air through her teeth as Deucalion slipped his hand between her legs. He slid his fingers over her clit and around her opening before thrusting them into her. "I want to hear you moan though. I've always found it one of the most gratifying things about sex. Knowing you're making the person you're with come, and having them tell you without words."

Val tried to compose herself but his fingers were driving her crazy. "I could cry your name out in ecstasy if you like."

"That isn't 'too melodious'?"

Val thought. "You know what, it probably is."

Deucalion laughed a low laugh, a noise she had grown accustomed to in the last two weeks. It was quickly becoming a noise she was unable to resist. He positioned his cock, hard from the thrill of pleasuring her, at her entrance and smiled. He smeared her juices all over the tip and shaft and the sight of him touching himself made her insides yearn for him.

"I guess I'll just have to listen to your breathing... and watch your body language. Good thing I have my eyesight back.

At that, he pushed himself into her. He watched her mouth open in a silent, elongated gasp. Her hands tightened around his arms and her nails dug into his skin when he began thrusting, long and slow. She squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip in an effort to stifle the noises she wanted to make, and he assisted by closing his mouth on hers. She responded with her tongue and they kissed deeply. When he felt she couldn't bear it any longer, his rhythm quickened, and she wrapped her legs around him and pulled him to her. She held him to her with both arms around his shoulders and buried her face in his neck, biting down to stop from crying out. The pain made him groan at first, the sharpness of her teeth contrasting with the soft parts of her that he was plowing into. The groan developed into a dull roar when he came moments later. She spasmed around him as she joined him in short, ragged breaths. He collapsed with a contented sigh.

"You're not light, you know," Val said and pushed him by the shoulders.

Deucalion laughed and tiredly pushed himself off of her and flopped onto his back with his eyes closed, the spent condom hitting him on his stomach with a slapping sound.

"Ugh," he replied.

Val laughed though she wasn't sure why she found it funny. She reached over to pull what he found distasteful off of him, causing him to twitch violently.

"Oh, god!" He said as his eyes flew open with surprise. "I'll do it."

Val laughed again and Deucalion sat up and flung his legs over the side of the bed. She tried to watch him take it off, out of curiosity, but decided to visit the bathroom instead.

When she came back to the room Deucalion was already asleep, lying on his side. She briefly considered returning to her own room but decided that, after what just happened, maybe she didn't have to be so standoffish. At least this one time. She reserved the right to be more distant later if she needed to be, but for now, the idea of falling asleep next to this slumbering sweet man was an attractive one.

She laid down next to him covering herself with the blanket and found herself unexpectedly pulled into his arms. He pressed her pelvis against his, fit his knees in the bend of her legs, and wrapped one arm around her. He buried his face in her hair, breathed in her scent, and sighed.

Val laughed quietly, "Are you smelling me?"

"Mmmyes." He mumbled, eyes still closed.

"How do I smell?"

"Delicious."

Deucalion inhaled deeply, _Mmm... Her smell..._

* * *

 

Smell might be the most important sense to a werewolf. Humans and other animals use their eyes to create a picture of the world around them, dogs and wolves use their nose, layering their mind with the intricacies of their environment. Inefficient, by some standards, but scent has the possibility of revealing things hidden from the eye. For Deucalion especially – having spent years of his life blinded – he possessed a sense of smell more powerful than most werewolves and still made use of it as frequently as he had when he was unable to see.

She had all the smells of a regular human, warm skin, the scent markers of a properly functioning immune system, the ingredients in the soaps she used and the chemicals in the fabric she wore. And, as of the moment, the salt of sweat clinging to her skin and the sweetness of sex between her legs. Their embrace has also left her covered in his scent, which he was enjoying. But there was something under those initial scents he was having a hard time identifying. It smelled... _resinous, maybe? No, not resinous..._ he was confused in his sleep addled state and searched his memory despite drifting in and out of consciousness. A sudden flicker of working in a woodshop somewhere in Europe in the middle ages flashed across his mind and before he could dwell on it, left him with nothing. He breathed in again, trying to locate the undercurrent, letting it sit on his palate as he tried to discern the individual notes.

It was a warm smell that reminded him of vanilla or roasted almonds, yet it had the lively green smell of chlorophyll, and the bright, sugary sweetness of tree sap.

_Tree sap?_ he questioned internally.

He hugged Val closer to him and buried his face deeper into the back of her hair, inhaling and basking in the smells he thought were at once strange and intriguing.

And in moments, he was asleep.

s asleep.


	10. Some Things Are a Matter of Perspective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smut and feelings.
> 
> Word count: 5,251  
> Edited: 15 July 2018

Deucalion felt the mattress shift under him and woke to Val climbing out of the bed.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm sorry, I was trying not to wake you."

"You did a terrible job," he said and chuckled softly.

She smiled, "I was just going to take a shower. Would you like to join me?"

Deucalion stretched languidly as he thought about the prospect, pushing most of the covers off of his nude, muscular frame as he did so. He glanced over to Val to see if she was enjoying the view and laughed at her expression; arms folded and smiling at him wryly with a brow raised.

"Mmm, we could soak in the tub instead."

"You actually use it as a tub?"

"Not really. Not when there's no one to soak with, certainly. But I'm sure it works just fine."

"I do have a thing for claw foot tubs..." she said, impersonating someone who was undecided.

He responded by rolling over to her and pulling her back onto the bed, letting her fall against his body. He peppered her neck with kisses as she laughed.

* * *

After some minor scrubbing, the tub was ready and filled with piping hot water. Deucalion went to climb in first, but was stopped by Val. She climbed in and leaned back, motioning for him to lean against her. Once in the tub, Deucalion was amused by his knees sticking out of the water but found himself quite comfortable leaning against her chest.

"I could fall back to sleep like this," he said as he closed his eyes.

"Don't, I'll never be able to get out."

Deucalion smiled.

Val traced the contours of the muscles in his arm with her fingers, provoking a contented sigh.

"That's nice."

Val smiled.

"Val, can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"When do you plan on leaving?"

"Why?"

"I'm just wondering. Are you staying here for weeks? Months? Are you just never going to go back?"

"It's nothing I've made any real decisions about. Are you asking because of last night?"

"Partially. I like having you around, we have a lot of fun together. And..." Deucalion trailed off as he tried to think of the right words.

"And?"

"I have very strong feelings for you."

"Oh, so you 'like' like me."

He laughed loudly, "I was trying for something more romantic and less... 'American high schooler' but sure, I 'like' like you."

"Well, we must keep up with the times so as to blend in more easily."

"If you ask me to wear a snapback, I'm getting out of this tub."

Val laughed a short laugh, but then her expression became serious. "You seem to have fallen quite quickly for me."

"Have I?"

"The Freudian slip, the book, now… it sure seems that way."

"Maybe I am," he conceded as he popped some bubbles. "I knew you were stunning even when I first saw you, in that hole you dug for yourself, covered in earth."

"Liar."

"I swear I'm not."

"I was absolutely covered in dirt, how could I have possibly looked pretty?"

"Excuse me? I believe I said 'stunning'."

Val laughed, "Even more unbelievable."

Deucalion turned around to face her.

"You're getting water everywhere," she protested.

"Why is that so unbelievable?"

"I don't know. I was covered in dirt? I had a worm just hanging out on my leg?"

"That doesn't mean I couldn't see you for what you really were."

"What's that?"

"Beautiful. Then later I learned that you were also intelligent, strong, willing to accept help, funny, amazingly sexy--"

'That's why you 'like' like me?"

"Stop saying it like that, you sound like a kid."

"I like it, it's silly."

Deucalion closed the distance between them, sloshing even more water onto the floor. He pressed his body into hers as he kissed her, pulling away so he could look into her eyes

“That was such a serious kiss,” Val said with a laugh.

"I think I'm falling in love with you."

Val averted her eyes for a moment. "That's such a strange thing to say. 'In love with you' implies both people are in love."

"Are you not?"

Her jaw flapped uselessly and she sighed. "I'm not sure."

Deucalion leaned back in the other side of the tub and viewed her with a concerned look.

Val returned the look. "I like you a great deal, you're interesting, you show that you can change, you want to make yourself better, you're fun to spend time with--"

"Nothing physical?"

Val sighed, "You're on the mind-numbingly attractive side, yes. I realized it when I first saw you too. There, you've dragged it out of me."

Deucalion chuckled, "I just wanted to hear you say it."

"Well I'm not used to saying it. I've found it best to not let others know what's going on inside my head."

Deucalion sat up, "You can let me know. I want to be the person that you can tell anything to."

"I've told you basically everything about me in the two weeks we've known each other."

"But not everything?"

Val looked away, "There are some things that... even after so many years, I'm still not ready to tell anyone."

Deucalion watched the soapy water as it washed over Val's breasts and splashed up against the craggy scar that covered her heart. He had a feeling he knew what she was referring to. "I'm fine with that."

Val looked at him incredulously.

"Tell me or don't tell me anything you want, as long as you don't lie to me I'm fine."

Val smiled, "Where do you get off being so understanding?"

"How do you think I've held packs together over the years?"

Val smiled again.

"So why are you not sure?"

"... I don't know. Maybe it's just because we haven't known each other very long."

They were both quiet. Val was almost certain this was going to lead to him no longer being in love with her. She swished her hand through the water as she waited for him to say something.

Deucalion caught her hand. "That's understandable."

"It is?"

"Yes. When you've been around as long as we have, and you're more than twice my age, knowing someone for a few days... it's nothing compared to how long you really can know someone. And knowing someone for a long time brings a kind of natural trust and affection that you just feel from being around that person for so long. I understand." He leaned back again and rested his arms on the sides of the tub.

"You've put it into better words than I could have."

"You're welcome."

"Eloquence. That's another thing I like about you."

"Oh, so you can think of things that you like about me."

"I never said I couldn't."

"What else do you like?"

"Don't push it, buddy."

Deucalion chuckled and slid down into the tub, splashing water out again.

"You better hope you don't rot this floor through."

"Should be fine. This place doesn't have a basement so it's not like we'll fall through into anything." He stood, water cascading down his body.

_Fuck,_ Val thought as the water dripped off his muscular frame.

"What say we dry off, hmm?"

* * *

It had been almost a month and a half since Deucalion invited her into his home, and almost a month since they had sex the first time. Val wondered if there was something to be said for the lost finding each other, but as soon as she had the thought she tried to purge it from her mind.

She had no idea what could happen in the days or weeks to come, but she knew she couldn't hide there forever.

She still refused to go outside the cabin, however. As much as part of her wanted to see her band – who she figured must collectively be mad at her at this point – she also didn't want to chance running into Scott, who  she was sure hated her. She wasn't sure if Scott and his friends blamed themselves or if they blamed her, but she didn't care either way. She wanted to be alone. Or rather, alone with one other person. She would have already left the state or the country if it weren't for Deucalion who, as much as he didn't want her to leave, still tried to convince her that Scott would be forgiving.

Deucalion, who did the shopping and didn't mind that she never went with him, even though he told her multiple times that he went to a different town and that the odds of running into Scott were low. Deucalion, who had resolved - after a particularly long conversation in which he finally got Val to admit she was bored of her self-imposed hermitage and that she just might be beginning to get cabin fever - to attempt to bring things into the cabin in order to give them more things to do.

The first time it was hot chocolate, and at night they set a fire in the fireplace and curled up next to it in a blanket. That led to sex.

The second time it was art supplies, in which they took turns posing for each other and decided who was the better artist. The winner was never decreed because that also led to sex.

The third time he looked up the rules for poker and challenged Val to a game of strip poker. And if he tried to convince anyone that sex wasn't his primary motive, he would have failed miserably.

Most things he thought of to occupy their time and give them a change of scenery inevitably led to sex, which gave him cause to wonder if they would become bored of that too if they kept relying on it as a fun thing to do.

* * *

One night, as they lounged in bed after a tiring afternoon of lovemaking, he decided to ask what hobbies she had prior to her time with him.

"Hobbies?" Val asked, confused.

"Yeah. What did you do with your free time?"

"Nothing much different than now. Although there is much more sex involved now."

Deucalion laughed quietly. "So what, you just sat there?"

"No... You're going to think it's stupid."

"Why would I think it's stupid?"

"Most people think it's stupid."

"In case you haven't noticed, I am not most people. So, tell me what it is, I won't laugh."

"I didn't say you'd laugh, I said you'd think it's stupid."

"Val, I won't think it's stupid, just tell me!"

Val laughed at his persistence. "I used to knit."

"What?"

"Kniting. And crochet. Like, hats and scarves and gloves and stuff. Also weaving and embroidery. Basically, all the soft crafts.”

"Why would I think that's stupid? I mean, it seems a little out of character, but that doesn't make it stupid."

"Most people call me a grandma when they find out. And then I have to stop from saying, 'No, I've never had kids, but yes, I am old enough to have birthed a bloodline several times over!'" Val gestured as she used a mocking voice to impersonate people who annoyed her.

Deucalion sighed, "That's so silly. So you like to knit, so what?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Trying to find things for us to do."

* * *

The next day he bought some yarn and needles at a craft store close to where he always bought food, having to ask an employee for help because he had no idea what he was looking for. When he brought everything back Val roared with delighted laughter and offered to show him how to make something. And – after several hours – all he made was a huge, tangled knot.

Dejected by his own lack of skills, he immediately moved to throw it out, but Val stopped him. She surveyed the woolen mass he accidentally birthed into existence, taking a crochet hook she took new yarn and wove it into a sphere. In the span of an hour, her deft hands had turned it into something with four limbs, and after another half hour, it had a head. Deucalion was amazed by how quickly she worked and how little effort it took her to turn his mess into something with purpose and form.

"What is it?" He asked.

"It's a little wolf," She said and held it aloft. "Well, if a wolf were bipedal."

"So it's me?" He joked, taking it in his hands and turning it over.

Val's face took on the appearance of a giddy child who was, in fact, too excited. "Oh my god! It is! It's a tiny you!" She laughed uproariously but suddenly stopped. "Wait!" She dug into the bag of yarn, "Didn't you buy blue? I'm giving it eyes!"

Deucalion held his eyeless, miniature self and laughed boisterously at her reaction.

Val seized the wolf from his hands and quickly stitched blue eyes onto its face, and a wry smile to accompany it.

"I don't smile like that."

"You always smile like that, shush."

"Do I?"

"Yeah, when you're amused by something you smile sort of... crooked. It's cute."

Deucalion smiled the same smile to himself genuinely, but also to secretly check if he really did smile as she described it.

He looked at the toy again. Tiny stitches, made from a mistake he made and corrected by her. So different from their relationship, but he wouldn't have wanted to be fixed by her, he was glad he could save himself. He wouldn't have wanted to meet her as an incomplete person that she couldn't help. He was glad they met when they did. He was confused, though, as to why she made something for him when he bought the yarn for her. But when he looked into her smiling eyes, he knew that the thing itself wasn't important, it was the gesture. To him, the tiny, complex stitches and the wordless dedication and focus that created them felt like... _Love?_ he thought to himself. _Is this her Freudian slip? Or is it just the moment? Maybe she does love me, somewhere in there. Maybe this gift is betraying her need to not say it, because she thinks that if she does, something bad will happen to me... I'm keeping it for forever._

The wolf found a home on the nightstand on his side of the bed.

But now he had this nagging feeling deep in the back of his brain like they were uneven. She had given him this small piece of her, but what did he have to give in return? He ruminated on the subject for a few days and came up with nothing. He had some old objects from his younger days, but those weren't anything he collected with her in mind. He wasn't even sure he could make anything. Knitting was clearly a bust, and he hadn't done any woodworking in a long time. He didn't have anything to give her that was just for her, from him. He didn't know what he should do.

* * *

"Duke, I think it's time I went back to my apartment," Val said abruptly over breakfast one morning.

"What? Why?"

"I'm sure the band is mad at me at this point, and I need to at least check on the place. I am paying for it."

"Will you come back?"

"I don't know. I'll probably end up running into Scott and his pals and I don't know how they feel about me at the moment."

It hit Deucalion now that he didn't want her to leave. He had always known he didn't, but back then it was like a sickening undercurrent to the entirety of their time together, the background radiation of a budding relationship. Now it felt like his organs were being pulled out. "Does this mean we're over?"

"Do... you want us to be over?"

"Not at all," he was hoping he didn't sound too needy but he was sure his voice betrayed him. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her away, but he desperately didn't want her to leave.

Val laughed, "I'm not going to do a film noir 'see you in the funny papers' and never see you again."

Deucalion was sure he was blushing like a schoolboy.

Val stood and walked to his side of the table.

Confused, Deucalion stood, his expression was pained as he waited to see what she would do.

Val kissed him, hugging him tightly as she did so, and pulled away to look at his now relaxed

features.

"Why don't you walk me back? Then you'll know where it is."

"I could do that."

"You could."

"And then..." he enrobed her in his arms. "Maybe I could visit you?"

"You could," she responded coyly.

Deucalion's voice lowered as he stepped closer. "And you can show me around your place."

Val giggled, "And what would I show you?"

Deucalion lifted his head away and feigned deep thought. "Oh... I don't know. The kitchen?"

"It's there when you walk in."

"The living room?"

"Can also be seen from the foyer."

"Oh, so you have a foyer?"

She laughed, "Not really."

"Hmm," Deucalion mused. "The bedroom?"

"I had a feeling that was the place you wanted to see."

"Oh, did you?"

"Yeah, I'm not sure why, I must have ESP or something. I seem to just have predicted it out of thin air." Val's voice dripped with sarcasm as Deucalion was already trying to rid her of her pants. Val sprung free of his grasp and effected the accent of a southern belle. "I said, 'You know, he's probably one of those no-good ruffians, one of those guttersnipe, jackanape types who might try to find his way into my chambers and have his way with me!'"

Deucalion laughed at her impression but stalked her across the room just the same. Val backed up when he got closer.

"'And here I am, just a young woman from Georgia, trying to find my way in this big wide, world, and find me a husband before all the men go off to war!'" She rested the back of her hand against her forehead dramatically.

"Alright right, Scarlett O'Hara, you're about to get ravished!"

And with that Deucalion lunged at her, closing the distance between them in an instant, sending Val scurrying and laughing into the room she used to sleep in.

"'You'll never have me, you highwayman!'" She yelled in delight as she closed the door on him.

Deucalion tried to open the door but Val held it shut.

"Val, I am not breaking this door in and ruining the frame," he said in his sternest voice.

"'Rhett! What should I do?! Where shall I go?!'" Val yelled from the other side.

Deucalion stopped trying to force the door and thought for a moment. He sighed. "Frankly, my dear, I just don't give a damn?" He asked and the knob of the door turned and the door swung open.

"'Oh, Rhett!'" Val exclaimed as she flung her arms around Deucalion's neck. "'One of those awful highwaymen was after me!'"

Deucalion raised an eyebrow. "Oh really?" Her faux-accent was beginning to grate on him.

"'And you know what I heard they really were?'"

"What?"

Val dropped the accent, "Werewolves."

"Werewolves." Deucalion repeated, unsure of where she was going.

"Mhm. I heard they'll charm the pants off you with their steel blue eyes and deep voices and English accents, and then-- you know what I heard?"

"What did you hear, my dear?" He asked, deepening the pitch of his voice and pulling his arms up around her.

"I heard they'll take you from behind..." she stood on her toes so she could whisper into his ear, "and fuck your brains out."

Deucalion pulled away so he could look at her face. "Is that so?"

Val nodded, "Mhm."

"Well then," he said as he slipped his hands into her pants and slipped her pants off her, "I'd hate to disappoint."

Val giggled as he locked lips with her, hoisted her up and carried her to the bed. He lay her down and undid his own pants, sliding them off as Val helped by pushing at them with her feet.

"I thought you were all afraid of the 'highwayman' now you're kicking his pants off?" He asked as he stood up.

"Well, it has been so very lonely at the estate lately," Val said with false innocence.

"My dear," Deucalion said as he pulled his shirt over his head and threw it to the floor, "what will the neighbors think when they hear you're in such a state?"

"Who'll tell them?"

Deucalion chuckled as he kissed her. "If I could make you moan and scream, they'd find out."

"And just how would you do that?"

He stood again and pulled her underwear off of her, "I was thinking this." He pulled her by the hips to the side of the bed and buried his face between her legs causing her to giggle with delight. He balanced on the balls of his feet and closed his mouth around her clit drawing little circles on it with his tongue. Val inhaled deeply and shoved her fingers into his hair, grabbing it in fistfulls as she gasped and sighed. As much as Deucalion wanted to watch her as her breasts heaved, he dipped his head back down. He flattened his tongue against her labia and dragged it back up to her clit and sucked on the bud, the bundle of ultra-sensitive nerves sending waves of pleasure through her body.

Deucalion chuckled to himself against her thighs.

"What?" Val asked as she pushed herself up and looked at him.

"Nothing." He said with a smile.

"No, what is it?"

"If I had known you would be this easy, I would have visited this estate a long time ago!"

Val opened her mouth in false shock, reached for a pillow, and hit Deucalion over the head with it.

Deucalion laughed, toppling over from the force of the pillow. "Oh, my lady, what will everyone think of your violent tendencies?"

Val sat up and grabbed him under his jaw and helped him back up. "Don't make me give you a whipping, you no good ruffian."

Deucalion laughed.

"Now get back down there," Val said as she shoved his head back between her thighs and wrapped her legs around his ears, muffling his laugh as he once again licked her clitoris. At this, Val's legs relaxed and fell away from his ears and rested on his shoulders. Deucalion took this as an opportunity to slide one, and then two fingers into her, angling them up as his teased her clit with his tongue. Val's eyes closed tightly as she exhaled in a noteless moan, pulling the sheets into her balled up fists. As her hips bucked erratically, Deucalion forced them down with his other hand, forcing her to stay still and accept what he was doing to her. She exhaled harder, wishing she could make noise but not wanting to subject him to the dehumanizing effects of her powers. Instead, she shoved her hands into hair again and pinned him against her. As Deucalion's tongue and fingers became more vigorous, Val's breathing became more shallow and ragged. Finally, she gasped and her body became motionless, except the part of her that was now pulsating violently around his fingers. Deucalion smiled as he thrust his fingers into her one last time, causing her to inhale deeply and clamp her legs around his head.

When her legs fell away again she could hear him chuckle.

"Shut up," Val breathed. "I hate you and the things you do to me."

"No you don't," Deucalion sang to her as he wiped his face in one motion and licked her juices off his fingers.

Val watched and smiled, "You're a dirty old man, you know that?"

"No, I'm a werewolf, and you know what I heard?" He asked as he helped her roll onto her stomach and pulled her toward him so her legs were off the bed and her feet were on the floor.

"Oh no," Val giggled quietly.

Deucalion positioned his cock, hard from all the excitement of toying with her, at the entrance of her dripping wetness. He wrapped one of his arms around her shoulder and pulled up, her spine curved, and brought her ear to his lips "I heard they take you from behind and fuck your brains out."

With that, Deucalion thrust into her. Val held onto his arm and tried not to moan though she very much wanted to. It wasn't just how much he filled her and so quickly, it was that he flipped her own words back at her in the most suave and charismatic way.

"I guess they were right about werewolves being charming," Val said huskily as Deucalion let her go and placed his hands on her hips.

"You're damn right," he agreed, and brought one hand down hard onto her asscheek.

"Oh my god!" Val gasped, equal parts surprise and pleased.

Deucalion froze for a moment, unsure of her reaction.

She turned her head, "If you don't keep doing that I will be very upset."

Deucalion smiled and brought his other hand down onto her other cheek.

"Fuck!" Val said and slid forward, breasts pressed up against the bed.

Deucalion correctly read that as his cue to keep going and was amazed as how much she changed from being so cold and distant to now letting him spank her with no worries.

As the flesh of her ass stung and reddened, Val was happy to let her anxieties go and put herself into the strong, capable hands of the only person she felt she could trust. Not that he needed to know that.

Deucalion stopped spanking her when the red outline of his hand finally appeared on her asscheek. He turned his attention to her posture, pressed up against the bed and biting into the palm of her hand. He scooped her up again, the fullness of her rump almost making it difficult for him to stay in her as he thrust, and held her against him. He palmed one breast in his hand, pinching her nipple between his fingers, and stuck the fingers of his other hand in her mouth. Val sucked on them reflexively, gasping from his continued thrusts. He pulled his fingers out of her mouth and touched them to her clit almost making her jump from surprise. She could feel him grin next to her ear as he rubbed it slow at first and then more vigorously, making her shift her weight on her feet as she stood on her toes. Her feet ached from trying to make herself tall enough for him, and her body ached from the pleasure he had already given her. She exhaled deeply as she felt the pressure begin to build up again between her legs. Her entire body screamed at his touch and how thoroughly he had fused their beings as his cock plunged into her and slammed up against her cervix. She wrested herself from the grip of his arm and, bending back as far as she could, grabbed him with one hand and pulled his mouth to hers. He grabbed her hip to steady himself with his free hand, his fingers furiously working her clit. Her other hand was the only thing they were balanced on. She breathed into his mouth in erratic breaths as he felt her convulse around him, the hand they were balanced on now gripping at the bedsheets. He bit her lip to stop her from pulling away and held her hips to his as she came. Feeling himself about to reach his limit, he let go of her lip, pushed her body away from his, and shot his warm seed all over her back.

Val turned to look at him. "I hope you plan on cleaning that up."

Deucalion laughed as he stood, one hand on the edge of the bed, the other on his lower stomach. He grabbed some tissues from the nightstand and began to clean her.

"Val?"

"Yes, highwayman?"

He stopped, "If you start with that accent again I'll leave you to clean yourself."

Val laughed, "What?"

"Where did you get these tattoos from?"

She rested her head in her hands. "Which?"

"These lines next to your spine on your lower back," he began and he traced them with his fingers. "You have some dots on the other side here higher up. This one that... looks like an elaborate wolf, maybe? I noticed the lines on your wrist as well, and the runes on your right forearm earlier, but I had never seen you from this angle before."

"Enjoying it?" Val asked huskily.

Deucalion smiled. "Of course."

"Well, the lines and dots are the oldest, they're paleolithic. The wolf was done by a woman I knew when I was traveling through an ancient Norse fishing village, it's Fenrir. The runes were done when I was in Upsalla for a festival shortly after, am I clean?"

Deucalion wiped the last bit of himself from her skin. "All clean."

She rolled over and pointed to her right shin, "This fish was done when I was hanging out with some Sarmatian shamans after a battle I helped them with. And this," she pointed to an anchor on her left rib, "was done by a tattoo artist I knew when I lived in New York in 1936."

"Quite the collection."

"I try."

"I noticed you have a number of scars too, aside from the ones on your chest... and the one I saw on your back." He figured that the scars were both around her heart, _One on the front and one on the back..._

"Yeah, it would seem that huldras don't heal the way werewolves do.

"I like them."

"Thank you, but I didn't ask."

Deucalion looked at the tissues in his hands and put them down on the nightstand. He sat next to her, quiet for a moment as he collected his thoughts.

"I mean, I like you. All the parts of you. The parts I know and the parts you may never tell me. Each of these marks is something that happened to you that I wasn't there for. I didn't mean to imply that you needed my approval for them, you don't."

"That's normally the case when those words happen in that order."

"I realized it after it came out of my mouth, I'm sorry."

Val waved it off, "Nah, don't be. I know what you mean. I shouldn't bristle at everything." She sighed, "Old habits die hard, I guess."

"You know you can let your guard down around me."

"I'm trying. I’m so used to living with it up and fully armed that I slipped. Sorry."

Deucalion touched his head to hers and smiled, "Let's both agree that we messed up, and we'll accept each other's apology."

Val returned the smile, "Sure."

They sat there, their foreheads touching as Deucalion gently placed his hand on her shoulder.

"And hey," Val said as she pulled away, "I thought I was going to give you the whipping."

Deucalion laughed heartily, the muscles in his abdomen tensing with mirth. "I gave you a spanking, not a whipping."

"So I get the spanking and you get the whipping? I can deal with that."

Val smiled as Deucalion laughed.


	11. Grey Matter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goodbyes and hellos, acceptance and letting go.
> 
> But do we truly ever let anything go?
> 
> Word count: 5,764  
> Edited: 15 July 2018

The next night after a day of long goodbyes which were spent almost entirely in bed, but sometimes on the floor or couch, it was time for Val to finally leave. She wore her dress for the first time in months, remembering how anxious she had felt when she picked it out. To think that she was so worried that she might ‘relapse’ back into her old ways, and that she almost had. How much her life had changed since then. Now she had this… guy. She wasn’t sure what to call their relationship and she was afraid to try and name it for calling down the unseen wrath that seemed to always ruin her happiness in recent centuries.

Deucalion walked Val to the main road and from there, he walked her back to her apartment in Beacon Hills. He kissed her goodbye at the door, declining to come in. After he left she closed the door and leaned against it for a few moments trying to come to terms with the new, hollow feeling she felt in her chest at his departure. She turned the lights on and put her keys on the counter.

She heard the door handle begin to turn but then something inside the tumbler gave way with a loud snapping sound, and the door swung open. She spun around, ready for a fight.

Standing in her doorway were Scott and Lydia.

Val raised an eyebrow. "You might try knocking next time, I hear it's all the rage."

Lydia folded her arms, "Was that Deucalion we just saw you with?"

Val folded her arms as well and scowled. "And if it was?"

"You should know that he's not a kind man."

"He's hurt people in Beacon Hills before. Killed people." Scott added.

"And what?" Val scoffed. "You think I'm in danger?"

"Yes." Lydia said matter-of-factly.

Val leveled her gaze at the two of them. "You do realize that I've killed people before, right? I almost killed your creature when I tried to help you find them."

Scott and Lydia exchanged a glance.

"Listen, you seem concerned, which I don't entirely understand because I'm pretty sure you don't trust me, but we've already shared our horror stories with each other."

Scott's eyes narrowed, "What did he tell you?'

"That he was betrayed by the Argents and blinded by Gerard," Val began. "Then in his weakened state he was attacked by one of his Betas and killed him in self-defense. Realized that he had absorbed his power, killed all his Betas and convinced his other Alpha friends to kill their Betas and start an Alpha pack. Then a dark druid, I forget the name--"

"Darach?" Lydia offered.

"That was it. The Darach sacrificed a crazy amount of people, then you teamed up with him, Scott.

Scott rolled his eyes. "Okay, I get it."

"While your friend Derek teamed up with the Darach. Then you all fought and you became a true Alpha by breaking her mountain ash circle. Then Derek tricked her into giving Deucalion his sight back--"

"Okay, okay." Scott tried to get her to stop.

"Then he killed her, meaning you didn't have to. Did I miss anything?"

Scott appeared confused. "No, but, wait, he told you that Gerard betrayed him?"

"Yes. Gerard told him they would meet in a distillery to talk peace, then he killed his own men with a mace covered in wolf claws and burned Deucalion's eyes out with flashbang arrows."

Scott turned to Lydia, "I knew he was lying when he told me how Deucalion became blind." Scott eyed Val for a moment. "Why did he tell you all this?"

Val shrugged, "Sometimes people trust each other, Scott. I don't know if that's a foreign concept for you."

Lydia became defensive, "Scott trusts a lot of people."

"He didn't trust me," Val said flatly.

"Well you did try to eat that guy's face."

Val couldn't help herself and took a step forward, so her nose was almost touching Lydia's. "I told you that I was uncomfortable doing that but I did it anyway because you guys needed help. I'm sorry I fell off the wagon but your books already told you I was dangerous and you took that chance anyway." Sensing Lydia was made uncomfortable by her proximity, Val eased back so she could view both of them. "I haven't eaten in a long time. Imagine one thing you really enjoy, a certain food, shopping, sex, whatever, imagine not being able to do that thing because every time you do, someone dies. Imagine how it must feel never being able to do that thing. How much you long for it, and how much it makes you ache but you know you can't act on that feeling because doing so would be extremely selfish and that's not the kind of person you want to be. So you just have to try to live without that thing for forever."

Scott and Lydia stood in awkward silence and Val grilled them silently.

"I never thought of it like that," Lydia said awkwardly. "As a thing you want, not a thing you need."

"It's like a drug to me, and for a long time I had kicked the habit."

"Oh."

"All I ask is a little less in the realm of accusation, and a little more understanding."

"So why did Deucalion tell you about... about everything?" Scott asked.

"He didn't just tell me about that. He told me about his life before Beacon Hills. Working with the druids to learn how to change his form at will. Trying to make peace between packs so there was less fighting. Trying to encourage a willing giving up of power from Alphas to Betas instead of the violence usually required... And why do you care? Didn't you pardon him?"

"But why did he tell you that?"

"Call it pillow talk."

Lydia’s eyes widened. "Are... you two together?"

Val noticed a shadow in the hallway and looked to see who it was. "Why don't you ask him?"

Deucalion stood in the hallway, looking somewhat sheepish to be in Scott's presence again.

Scott growled and bared his claws and teeth and started for Deucalion but Val stopped him, her humming arresting his movement. Her eyes had become silvery like the moon and her voice seemed to take on an otherworldly quality. With her voice she beckoned Scott to turn. He moved as if pulled against his will; stiff and trying to resist. Val turned him all the way around to face her and gently touched his chin with her fingertips. She smiled and shook a politely scolding finger at him. He retracted his claws and teeth and Val finally let him go.

Scott's limbs dropped like a marionette whose strings had been severed. Having his body twisted around winded him and put his hands on his knees and forced himself to breathe again.

Lydia, who at this point had a look of extreme worriment on her face, asked, "What stopped you from trying to eat him?"

Val looked at Deucalion, he was smiling back at her. Internally, he was marveling at her self-control.

"No need." Val addressed Deucalion, "Would you like to come in?"

Deucalion smiled again and strolled past Scott. "I would." He looked around the room.

"I thought you left."

"I heard the lock on your door break and I was worried you were getting mugged. I had to run back."

Val viewed the recovered Scott and Lydia who was eyeballing Deucalion. "No, just the neighborhood kids won't get off my lawn."

Deucalion chuckled. "The place is awfully stark for what I imagined your tastes to be."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I imagined you in sumptuous fabrics and dark colors befitting of Morticia Addams."

"You know landlords," Val said flippantly. "You put one pushpin in the wall, you lose your deposit and get evicted."

"You could live with me if you want."

"I'm a fan of your place but I don't know if I you have room for all my music equipment. And I'm not lugging it back and forth from the venue, there is _a lot_ of it."

"We could find another place."

"You'd do that?"

Deucalion nodded. He pulled her towards him and kissed her.

"So you two really are together?" Lydia asked.

"Deucalion is really much more compassionate than you and your friends have known him to be," Val said firmly and grasped Deucalion's hand. "He's trying to recapture what it was to be himself before he was betrayed. I know what that's like, trying to recapture what you were when you were a better person."

Deucalion responded by touching his forehead to hers and smiling.

"Is that how you're fulfilling our deal?" Scott asked. "When Derek and I told you we wanted you to change?"

Deucalion turned to face Scott. "It is. Now that I'm trying to be more like my old self I want to try and make it up to you and everyone I hurt. Or… that I caused to be hurt by causing Jennifer to sacrifice all those people."

"That wasn't your fault," Val protested. "She made her own decisions."

"Part of me still feels responsible. If I hadn't created the Alpha pack, it wouldn't have created her and forced her hand. And... I think I owe her a kind of debt, she returned my sight, after all."  He turned back to Scott, "I know I can never fix everything, but I want to at least try to help."

Scott stared at Deucalion for a few moments as he gauged his heartbeat and weighed it against his words.

Lydia looked at him empathetically.

"I think everyone deserves a shot at redemption, don't you Scott?" Val asked

Scott had a feeling that she didn't just mean Deucalion, but also herself. He nodded at them slowly, "Yes."

Deucalion turned to Val, "I have a house in Beacon Hills, not far from here. Also in the woods, but closer."

"Why weren't you staying there instead?"

"I didn't want to bring notice to myself until I had filled my portion of the agreement. It's a much bigger and more obvious house. Deucalion paused to look at Scott for a moment before turning his attention back to Val. "But now that the truth is out, I have no reason to hide. Would you like to move in with me?"

A smile slowly spread across Val's face. "So you're saying it has room for all my equipment?"

Deucalion laughed, "Yes. You can even redecorate it the place if you like, I never really got around to it."

"You do realize it's going to look much different than this apartment, right?"

"I had a feeling."

"I actually had a lot of stuff in storage that needs a house to be in."

"'Stuff?'"

"Old stuff. Antiques and a few things I managed to not lose over the centuries."

"Wow."

"I was waiting until I had an actual house to put any of it out."

"Well, it would seem that now you can." Deucalion smiled.

"That appears to be the case."

Val turned away, seeking a modicum of privacy to make her decision. She turned back with a huge grin on her face. "I'll move in."

Deucalion closed the gap between them and hugged her tightly. He pulled back and kissed her deeply.

Scott and Lydia were both extremely uncomfortable.

"Ahem," Scott tried to remind them they had company. "We still need your help though."

Val pulled herself away from Deucalion and folded her arms.

"You still want my help, after what happened?"

Scott looked at Lydia briefly, and then back to Val. "Everyone deserves a shot at redemption, don't you think?"

* * *

 

The day after Val finished moving into Deucalion's house – and apologized profusely to her band and begged their forgiveness – Scott called a 'meeting' at Deaton's to inform Val of what had happened weeks ago when Val subdued the creature for them. Scott, Deaton, Val, and Deucalion were gathered around the metal table in the examination room which had a folder with papers in it resting on it. Val quietly wondered what they had to do with what they were discussing.

"He was in a fugue state," Deaton explained. "He didn't know who he was, couldn't remember anything, so he was wandering around in the woods."

"Where was he during the day?" Deucalion asked.

"We're not sure. There are several caves in the area so he could have been hiding in any one of them."

"How did you guys capture him?" Val finally asked. Something she had been wondering since that night. "I thought I heard you yelling that he was getting away or something."

"It was a bit of a struggle, but we managed to tranquilize him," Scott answered.

"Sorry, I didn't know because I... left."

"It's okay."

Deaton looked form Scott to Val, "After they sedated him they brought him here and we forced him to transform back using the appropriate amount of electric current."

"That sounds pretty gruesome."

"It isn't, really. Electrical current just stops the transformation to wolf. After we turned him back though, he was just as catatonic as when we left him at Eichen House."

"You got not information from him, is what you're saying? No idea who let him out?" Deucalion asked.

"Nothing," Scott said. "But we really have no reason to doubt that Peter killed this guy just because he happened to get in his way."

"So it's done with?" Val asked.

"It would appear so," Deaton replied.

"Too bad about looking up all that lore, huh, Scott?" Val joked.

"It wasn't so bad. We have more than one bestiary now, so that's good at least."

"Yes, and we met. And oh, how our lives have changed." Val looked out of the corner of her eye to see Deucalion smiling at her as she said this.

She reached for his hand and entwined her fingers with his.

Deaton and Scott exchanged glances.

"If that's all," Deucalion said, "we'll be going."

They both moved to leave.

"That's not all," Deaton said. "I have this." He brandished the unopened folder from the table at Deucalion.

Deucalion turned to Val who looked equally confused. "What is it?"

"It's the MRI I had originally done of your head after Gerard attacked you. I never got to show you because you asked us all to leave and then... well. But I would like to show you now, if I may."

Deucalion turned to Val who shrugged.

"Sure, why not?"

Deaton opened the folder and spread the pictures out on the table. "If you remember, originally I took these for your eyes, to see the damage done by the arrows."

"Yes."

"And you can see here," he pointed to the same spot on each picture, "the damage healing as you look from picture to picture, each taken seconds from each other." He pointed again at the darkened areas in and around Deucalion's eyes as the pictures progressed. "But look here," he pointed at a spot behind the skull that was the same across all pictures. "This is your frontal lobe. Look at how much damage it sustained and how it didn't heal."

"Forgive me, I'm no neurologist. What does it mean?"

"Your frontal lobe is the part of your brain that allows you to really have rational thought; the thing that makes us human. It allows you to plan for the future and weigh options when you make decisions, it's also where we make judgements throughout our life and governs our inhibitions. Another big part of our life that's controlled by our frontal lobe is our personality. Phineas Gaige is a famous example of someone who received extreme trauma to their frontal lobe. He was suddenly less caring of how he was seen in the public eye, more prone to violent outbursts, especially when it involved someone's will conflicting with his own."

Deucalion looked to Val who put her hand on her shoulder. He stared at the pictures, examining them again as he considered what Deaton told him.

"So... you're saying… you think something similar happened to me?" He finally asked.

"Look at these MRIs, your frontal lobe is damaged. That, coupled with your behavior after the attack... I believe that your actions were not entirely your own."

Val gasped, everyone looked at her.

"Sorry. But maybe that's why you can't fathom why you did the things you did. Because your brain is healed... the neural pathways that were destroyed are whole again, and you physically can't think the way you thought when they were injured."

Deucalion looked surprised. "That can't be it," he turned to Deaton. "Can it?"

"I think, in all likelihood, that's what happened. The frontal lobe also houses most of our brain's dopamine responsive neurons. The dopamine response is how our brains reward ourselves for doing things. I believe that you achieved a kind of high from killing your first Beta - after you killed him your brain flooded with dopamine - and that, coupled with your irrational responses, is what caused you to think the concept of an Alpha pack was a good idea in the first place."

Deucalion was quiet, thinking.

Deaton lowered his gaze at him. "I knew you before this injury, Duke. I know that your behavior was nothing like how you acted prior. "

Deucalion looked almost small, like he was turning in on himself. He gripped the table as everything after the attack unwillingly replayed over in his head. Killing his Betas, convincing his friends to kill theirs, killing one of his own friends, getting another one killed... all because of his own stupidity.

"I still..." he began shakily. "I still did those things though… But thank you. For telling me why they made sense at the time."

"You're welcome," Deaton replied. I felt you deserved to know."

Everyone was quiet. Deaton put the MRIs back into their folder. Scott stood with his arms folded, processing this new information. Deucalion stood in quiet contemplation, still gripping the table, a look of concern on his face. Val studied his face trying to discern what was going on in his mind.

Finally, she broke the silence. "Do you want to go home?"

Deucalion took his hands off the table and stood up straight. "Yeah."

Val took his hand and led him out of the room.

"Thanks guys," she said as she ushered him out. "Call us if you need us.

"Sure," Scott replied.

"Bye," Deaton said.

* * *

 

Deucalion walked through the front door and Val followed him into the house, closing it behind her. She watched as Deucalion made a beeline across the room.

"Where are you going?" She asked.

"I need to lie down and think for a while."

"Do you want me to leave you alone?"

Deucalion stopped and turned. "Umm... I want to be alone, but also not."

Val smiled, "You lie down and I'll join you in a little bit."

Deucalion nodded, then walked into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. He sighed. He didn't want to take off his jacket and shoes but he felt he should. Slowly, he forced his shoes off of his feet and let his jacket fall to the floor as he succumbed to the morose feeling he felt since Deaton brought up his MRI. He lay down on the bed and closed his eyes, replaying everything he did with the greatest of detail. Being brought to Deaton's office. Learning he would never see again. Killing Marco, a rush of adrenaline and dopamine like he'd never felt before. Killing his other Betas, each one a hit as hard as the hardest drug and with each of their deaths he coalesced into something so much stronger and more powerful than before. Convincing Kali and Ennis to kill their packs and reliving the rush vicariously through them. Watching the twins turn on their alpha and then slaughter the rest of their pack. Killing Ennis, the biggest hit of them all, his power multiplied in an instant...

But he had killed one of his friends. Then Kali was killed by Jennifer and he wasn't there to save her. The twins almost died. Jennifer sacrificed all those people just to try and weaken him. And for what? To save others? No. For her own revenge. He may not have killed those people with his own hands, but their deaths were just as much his fault as any of the others.

He suddenly felt very tired. Maybe it was the rehashing of old actions and reopening of old wounds for the umpteenth time that had worn his brain out. He couldn't be sure. But before he knew it, he was asleep.

The sound of the door opening roused him.

"Were you asleep?" Val asked. "Go back to sleep, I'll come back later."

Deucalion sniffed groggily. "Is that tea?"

Val pushed the door open to show him the tray.

"Vanilla chai. I put heavy cream and some homemade marshmallows in it."

"It smells delicious. Bring it in, wouldn't want it to get cold."

Val smiled and entered the room. Deucalion sat up in the bed and rubbed his eyes. Val placed the tray between them and sat on the bed. Deucalion took one of the mugs filled with aromatic tea and cradled it in his hands. He inhaled the array of spices deeply.

"It's still hot so be careful."

He looked at her.

"What?"

He put his mug back down on the tray.

"All of the shitty, awful, miserable things I did with my life, and somehow I end up with someone who's nice enough to tell me to be careful of hot liquids."

"Is that supposed to be sarcastic?"

"No, I'm just pointing out... pointing out that I don't deserve it, I guess."

"Deuc," Val said, placing her hand on his. "You don't know the full extent of what I've done with my life. So stop saying that you don't deserve my being nice to you. And you have yet to see me when I'm pissed off.” Val smiled, “Be thankful you haven't."

Deucalion sighed, "At any rate, it _feels_ like I don't deserve it."

"You were a good man before the injury, that's why you deserve it."

Deucalion smiled.

"And you'll be a good man now. I know you will."

Deucalion picked up his mug again and tested it with a sip. "Oh my god."

"See? I told you it was hot."

"No, it's not hot, it's delicious."

Val laughed, "Well thank you."

"These marshmallows, oh my god," Deucalion took another greedy sip. "Did you put sugar in it or is that the marshmallows?"

Val smiled as she watched him sip his drink excitedly. "The mallows."

"What's in them?"

Val took a sip of her own tea. "Maple syrup."

"It has a smoky kind of flavor, it's fantastic."

Val smiled broadly, "Well I'm glad you like them, they took forever to set up."

"Oh, that's what you were making yesterday?"

"Yes. I learned to make them when I spent six months in France masquerading as a student in a pastry school. They're a big to-do so I don't make them often. You saw the state of the kitchen yesterday."

"It looked like a bomb went off."

Val rolled her eyes, "Yeah."

"Well, you should always make them, and always put them in this tea." He said and took another long sip.

Val laughed, "Maybe if you help me clean up."

Deucalion drained the mug and wrapped his hands around it in thought.

"Hmm," he mused.

"'Hmm,' what?" Val asked before sipping her own tea.

"That almost made me forget what I was thinking about before I dozed off."

Val snapped her fingers with false regret. "Damn it, ya saw right through my elaborate plan."

Deucalion smiled sadly.

"What were you thinking about?"

"Just... everything. All of it. Everything I did when I wasn't me. It was like scratching open a scab, you know you shouldn't but you do it anyway. And then it just hurts all over again."

"So why'd you fall asleep?"

"I don't know, I didn't even realize until you woke me. I think I just exhausted myself by thinking about all of it again. All those people that died because of me... That and... I was lying down."

"Ah. Well, that'll do it."

Deucalion looked ashamed.

Val smoothed his hair back from his face, running her fingers through it as she did so. "Do you feel a little better after your nap though? Sometimes sleep helps us sort out our problems.

"A little... I suppose knowing that my injuries were more than just my sight helps in that I feel like I can really go back to being my old self with no fear of relapse. But..." he trailed off as he tried to think of the words he wanted. He felt like he was repeating himself at this point, but there was no other way to say it. "I'm still the one who did all those things."

They sat silently as Deucalion berated himself internally. Val stood and put the tray with their mugs on it on the nightstand, and sat next to Deucalion, forcefully hugging him until they were both reclined on the bed.

"What are you doing?"

"I don't know how to make you feel better so I'm doing this."

They lay on the bed with Val's arms wrapped around him, squeezing.

He laughed, "How is this supposed to help?"

"I don't know."

"So... why are you still doing it?"

"You seemed like you need a hug is all."

"Can I at least have the use of my arms so I can hug you back?"

"If you want," Val said and rearranged herself so she was nestled against his chest with his arms around her.

Deucalion felt himself drifting into sleep again, when he was awoken by a bite on his side.

"Huh?"

"No sleeping. You're enjoying a hug."

"Uh, wouldn't falling asleep be a compliment then? Because the hug is that relaxing?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I said so."

Deucalion looked at the ceiling of their room for a moment. "So what am I supposed to do?"

"Enjoy yourself."

Val lifted his shirt again and bit him on the belly. The skin there was taut over the muscle but she still managed to grab it with her teeth. Deucalion twitched violently and looked down at her.

"What are you doing? I'm awake."

Val looked at him blankly and bit him again, more firmly this time. She slid her fingers under his waistband to expose the softer skin of his lower belly, and bit there too.

Deucalion inhaled deeply. He wasn't entirely sure how this was supposed to be help, but why argue?

Val bit again, running her free hand up the inside of his thigh as she did so. She heard the sharp intake of air between his teeth as he enjoyed the feeling.

She knew of no verbal way to make him feel better, no words that could bestow some kind of grand wisdom about the dichotomy of good and evil, no pithy remark that could soothe his worries, so she was doing what little she could to help

Val unzipped his pants and Deucalion arched his back to help her take them off. He stared at her as she threw them to the floor and turned back around to claim her prize. His cock, already stiffening, was laying on his stomach and she took great delight in locking eyes with him as she ran her tongue up the length of it.

"Fuck, Val, your mouth is magical," he exhaled.

"Hm?" She questioned wordlessly as her tongue danced across his flesh.

Deucalion closed his eyes and let his head roll back as he whispered, "You make me want to die when you do that."

"Is that bad?"

He looked down at her, "No, it's just.."

Val swirled her tongue around the tip and he sighed.

"When you lock eyes with me it's like you're... I don’t know. Challenging me? No. Like you’re seeing right through me into something I didn’t know was even there. It makes me feel like I might die."

Val laughed a low laugh as she took him into her mouth.

"Also, it feels like you might steal my soul by literally sucking it out of me."

Val guffawed and sat up.

"What?" Deucalion asked as he laughed at her reaction.

"Seriously?"

"I-- yeah, it makes sense in the moment."

"You're ridiculous."

Deucalion smiled broadly but his expression changed to one of bliss as Val settled herself between his legs again. She lifted his cock off his stomach, eliciting a sharp exhale from him as she did so. She circled his girth as she wrapped her fingers around it one by one, noticing that her middle finger and thumb barely met. She slid her thumb up the large vein that throbbed at her touch and circled the head. A globule of clear precum appeared and she spread it over the crown, and then touched her thumb to her tongue, eyes locked with his. He groaned and his eyes glazed over as his body ached for what she teased. She smiled deviously and returned one hand to his shaft as she gripped his balls firmly with the other, pulling them away from his body slightly.

The untrained eye would have thought that the sudden kick from his legs meant that he was trying to free himself from her grasp, but it was all he could do to stop himself from grabbing her and having his way with her. He didn't want her to stop, but his brain was a frantic mess of wanting to fuck her and continue letting her blow him, and he wasn't sure which he wanted more.

She gently touched her lips to another bead of precum that appeared, finally severing their eye contact. She opened her mouth as she took him in, driving him mad with how excruciatingly slow she moved. When her lips reached his base she swirled her tongue all around his shaft. By now his fingers were tangled in her hair and he couldn't take it anymore.

"Stop," Deucalion said as he gently pulled her away.

"What?"

"This is driving me insane," he said as he sat up and pulled at her belt.

"What are you doing?"

"Take these off."

"I thought I was blowing you?"

"Not anymore. Off with the pants.

Val yielded and did away with her pants and underwear. Before she could say anything else Deucalion pulled her onto him and pushed inside her. She covered her own mouth to stifle a moan as she slid onto him.

Deucalion grinned mischievously. "Well, you're surprisingly wet considering you were attending to me."

"It's not like it's not arousing," Val returned with a sultry smile.

Deucalion took her face in his hands and kissed her deeply. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly as he thrust into her. Val couldn't help but let a blunted moan into their kiss in response. Deucalion felt like he could live off of her pleasure, fucking her and devouring the almost-moans, gasps, and other noises he elicited from her lips. He wanted to make her scream, and he wanted to steal that from her as well.

He let her free of his arms, bringing one hand to the back of her head so he could control their kiss, and one to her ass so he could force her hips down onto him.

Though she enjoyed when he was in charge, Val had to pull herself away.

"Nuh-uh," she said, sitting up straight. "This isn't about me, this is about you. And off with the shirt."

"Off with your shirt."

Val pulled her shirt up over her head and threw it to the floor. Deucalion, because he was lying down, got stuck in his shirt momentarily before Val pulled it off.

"What do you mean?" He asked, his hair sticking out in every direction.

Val leaned forward and smoothed his hair down. "I am the one making you feel better. You just have to enjoy yourself."

Deucalion's face changed from confusion to pleasure as Val took control. She made quick, short thrusts followed by long, drawn out ones as she watched his face for her cue. She watched this man, all muscle and toughness and quiet strength as she brought him to his knees over and over again. He moaned, begging for her to stop and then begging her not to stop. She delighted in bringing him to the edge only to pull him back again.

But all this teasing was too much for him, and he pulled her down onto his chest.

"You want to make me feel better? Then let me feel you come," he whispered into her ear harshly.

"Oh yeah?" She shot back breathlessly as he furiously thrusted into her.

"I need to feel you come. I need to feel you come all around me as I'm buried in you," he breathed into her ear.

Val could feel herself tighten around him as he encouraged her. He felt it too.

"Do it. Come around me and let me feel your walls pulsate and tense. I want to feel you come. I want to come with you. I want to feel it splatter your cervix and fill your insides. Do it. Come for me."

His words, hot in her ear, were all she needed. Unable to moan, she dragged her nails down his back as she climaxed. Deucalion's body responded and he gripped her to his chest as he followed behind her with a final thrust.

They breathed heavily, still clutching each other after the fact, exhausted from the effort and the payoff.

Val squeezed Deucalion in a bear hug and smiled to herself.

"That was supposed to be about you and you're all 'I want to feel you come.'' She said, mocking his voice.

Deucalion laughed breathlessly. "But that's what I wanted. I like the feeling." He tilted her head up with a finger under her chin and kissed her. "I like feeling you vibrate and pulse around me as you come. It's intense, it makes me want to come even harder."

Val chuckled and laid her head into the crook of his neck, nuzzling into his warm skin. She promised herself she was only closing her eyes for a moment, she wanted to clean up the mugs from the tea before they became difficult to scrub...


	12. Hunger (For Knowledge and Food)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluffy stuff.
> 
> Word count: 2,687  
> Edited: 15 July 2018

Val woke to her phone ringing. She immediately regretted the position she had fallen asleep in as she tried to sit up and felt a sharp pain shoot through her arm. She grit her teeth in pain and annoyance as she slowly brought her arm to her side, massaging her shoulder to try and dispel the cramp that had formed there. As she stifled another small grunt of pain, the phone rang again.

Deucalion rolled over. "What time is it?" He croaked, voice still congested with sleep as he rubbed his eyes.

Val picked up her phone and squinted at the screen. "5:30." She answered the call.

It was Scott.

"Hello?"

"What's wrong?" Val said, clearing her throat. "You sound completely awake."

"We've been up all night. Where have you been?"

"Sleeping, as people normally do at 5:30 in the morning. You just woke us up."

"Is it Scott?" Deucalion asked as he sat up, still groggy.

Val nodded.

"Well I'm sorry," Scott continued, "but it couldn't wait."

"What's wrong?"

"We found another body."

Val froze.

"What?" Deucalion asked, less from an inability to hear and more from an inability to comprehend what he heard.

Val reflexively pressed the speakerphone button and held the phone between them.

"Stiles got a call from his dad a few hours ago. Some kids were in the woods drinking and they found another body ripped up the same way as the first time."

"Jesus Christ," Val said and rubbed her eyes.

"Did they even ID the first one?" Deucalion asked, now completely awake.

"Yeah, they got a match on his DNA. His name was Thomas Howland, he was from a few towns over.”

"Why from so far away?" Deucalion wondered out loud.

"I think that's what the Sheriff is working on now. My mom snuck Deaton and I into the morgue so we could look at the new body. It has all the same markings and the jaw is missing."

Val turned to Deucalion, "I don't understand the jaw thing."

"Neither do I," he replied, shaking his head.

Val turned back to the phone. "So do you want us to come there?"

"Peter is locked up in Eichen House, that means we don't have the killer. I think we need to look through the books we have some more and find something before whatever it is kills again."

"Whose house are we meeting at?"

"I told Lydia to bring everything to my house. Everyone should be over in a half hour. I'll make coffee."

"Okay, we'll be there in a few. And I'll bring tea."

"I'll text you the address. Later."

"Bye."

Deucalion was already out of the bed and putting on pants. "I can't believe it wasn't Peter. Or rather... I can't believe it's something else that we don't even know of."

"Yeah. Just think about all the folkloric beings in every culture around the world. That's what we have to sift through."

Deucalion chuckled, "I'm a fast reader, but I'm not that fast."

Val smiled and looked for her clothes on the floor.

"You get dressed, I'll go make the tea. I'm sure I have thermoses somewhere."

* * *

 

As Deucalion drove, Val wondered how much she would have to read and process. The reading itself didn't bother her, it was the critical thinking she found daunting. _...how much the average human gets wrong about me, and then how much I'm going to have to read between the lines about another supernatural just to figure out if it's something that could have been inspired by something in real life? …I don't know if I know enough about each culture to untangle all of that--_

"I wonder how hard this is going to be," she finally said out loud.

"Hmm?" Deucalion replied.

"Trying to figure out the real from the fake."

"I don't think I follow."

"I mean, trying to read into the myths enough to figure out where the grain of truth is. Trying to peel away the centuries of other people's hang ups and ideas and mistranslations - only a silver bullet can kill a werewolf - until we can find the small pieces of truth - it's not a silver bullet, but a family of hunters who have the last name Argent that kills werewolves. I wonder how hard that will be to think about critically for each entry in each bestiary, and there's like forty of them, and we have to read it all and we may not even find what we want."

"I think you need to take a breath."

Val inhaled deeply, realizing that he was right and that she was out of oxygen.

"Second, I'm pretty sure there's only thirteen or fourteen books, so it's definitely not as bad as forty."

"It just seems like a lot to get through in a few hours is what I'm saying."

"It does, I'm not arguing with you on that. But why do you seem so stressed out about it?"

"Well, the first time the Scooby gang suspected me I almost had to make a quick exit."

"They don't suspect you now, though."

"True."

"And they even asked for your help again, so they trust you to some degree. They asked both of us to come help and that means they trust me to some degree and they actually know me as 'the bad guy.'"

"Both of these are true."

"So why are you freaking out about it?"

Val sighed, "I don't know. It just seems like déjà vu. It wouldn't be the first time I had to leave because someone died and someone discovered me soon after, and... I don't know, I kind of like this place."

"It isn't such a bad place. Though it seems to attract a certain..." Deucalion smiled wryly, "element."

Val smiled.

"We'll find out what it is," he reassured. "And you won't have to leave."

Val nodded, not entirely convinced.

"And if you do, I'll go with you."

* * *

 

Everyone was at Scott's house - Scott himself, Stiles, Lydia, Kira, Malia, Liam, Mason, Deucalion, and Val, all sprawled out across the couches, chairs, and floor as they read in the living room. Everyone stayed up into the next morning reading, underlining, tagging pages with post-it notes, and making notes about the creatures they read. The group had managed to read through about half the of the books, a more thorough voyage into the texts than the first. However, they were each coming up against their own pitfalls. Malia only spoke English with much fluency, so she was relegated to preliminary reading and looking for keywords in order to help the others. Kira barely spoke modern Japanese and was having some trouble with the much older version of the language she was reading in her books. Scott and Stiles both spoke Spanish passably well - both were taking Spanish class - but there was only one book in Spanish, so Stiles was trying his luck reading the Italian book. Liam had the French bestiary which he thought was his best bet at the time because he was taking intermediate French, but he soon realized he was in over his head and had to keep looking up words online. Mason was doing reasonably well with the German book he had, which he was pleasantly surprised with considering the only other thing he had ever read that was German was the book he bought after finding out what Liam was. He promised himself he would take German classes in college if he could. Val, Deucalion, and Lydia knew more languages than the others of their group, but they were each only one person and could only read through one book at a time.

The next morning started with seven people who had fallen asleep, and two severely tired ones who were still awake.

"I thought the whole thing was that old people were the ones who were tired and young people had boundless energy," Deucalion said yawning.

Val yawned, "These kids these days with their hip hop music and nose piercings and supernatural threats."

Deucalion laughed quietly as he flipped the page of his book. Ancient pages were pressed up against the glass of a scanner in a library thousands of miles away, preserving every letter, every stain, and every tear for a reader far away and far into the future.

"Greek?" Val asked.

"Arabic," Deucalion held it up for her to see.

"Ah. I couldn't see the words. Actually, I didn't really look at what was on the page before I asked."

"Tired?"

"Maybe."

Lydia, disturbed by the undercurrent in Val's voice, sat up slowly and looked at the two of them.

"What time is it?"

Deucalion checked his watch. "Almost ten."

"Oh my god," Lydia tried to smooth her hair away from her face but only succeeded in tangling her fingers in it. Val and Deucalion watched silently as she pulled on her hair before giving up and resigning herself to having a tangled nest of hair hanging off one side of her head. She lay back down and sighed heavily, laying her arm across her face.

Deucalion turned to Val, "Maybe I should make some coffee."

"Maybe we should just make breakfast," she replied. "I'm sure the smell would wake everyone up."

"I could really go for breakfast," Lydia said, muffled.

Val chuckled and she and Deucalion stood as quietly as they could and walked through the mess of paper and people to the kitchen. They quietly rooted through the cupboards and fridge in an attempt to find breakfast foods. Waffle mix, eggs, and a box of frozen breakfast sausages would have to do.

Deucalion started making the waffle mix as Val read the instructions on the side of the box of sausages.

"I'm going to put the sausages on first and see what happens," Val said as she dumped the contents into a pan.

"What do you mean?"

"Just wait."

Deucalion moved to ask again but Val silenced him by holding up her index finger in a 'one minute' gesture. Deucalion viewed her suspiciously but decided to look for the waffle iron instead.

As he took the third batch of waffles out of the iron he finally understood when Scott, Liam, and Malia awoke, followed by the remainder of the group.

"See?" Val said to Deucalion, who gave her a wry smile, and Lydia, who smiled but was busy trying to brush the knot out of her hair.

When everyone had finally found their way into the kitchen, Val asked, "How do you like your eggs?" Like the mother of a large family.

"You're making breakfast?" Scott asked.

"No, I'm making all of this as an offering for a long-lost, Lovecraftian god. We must appease it if we want our puny race to survive the apocalypse."

Scott's eyes widened in shock.

Lydia stifled a laugh that turned into a groan when she accidentally pulled on her hair with the brush.

Deucalion was taken by surprise by the absurdity of her statement and dropped the spatula he was holding as he doubled over laughing. He gripped the edge of the counter and continued to shake as he tried not to laugh.

"It wasn't that funny," Val protested.

"I'm sorry," Deucalion apologized as he picked up the spatula and wiped tears from his eyes. "It took me by surprise." He walked to the sink and washed the spatula as he kept trying not to laugh.

Val raised an eyebrow at him and shook her head. She turned back to the group of groggy teenagers, "Doesn't it look like breakfast?"

"Uh... yeah?" Scott asked.

"Then you're very astute," Val said with gentle sarcasm.

Scott stood there for a moment, befuddled.

"How would you like your eggs?" Val asked again.

"Um, over easy?"

"Okay," Val smiled. "Give me all your egg orders, you guys. Sausages are almost done and you can start on the waffles now if you want."

Deucalion carried the plate of waffles to the kitchen table and brought over a stack of plates which he set on the table as well. Everyone except he, Val, and Lydia wrote their preferred kind of eggs and how many on a paper Lydia provided and then sat at the table. Once at the table, they piled waffles onto their plates, and only Kira thought to bring the syrup, butter, and jam over from the fridge. Val walked over with glasses and containers of orange juice and milk and placed them on the table, returning to the stove to finish the sausages and start the eggs as Deucalion continued making waffles.

"Don't you want to eat with your friends?" He asked Lydia.

"Actually, I'd rather talk to you two about what you read in the books."

Val turned, trying to keep an eye on the eggs and be a part of the conversation. "I made notes in the margins of my copies," she offered. "In english, so you can look at them later if you want."

"Thank you," Lydia replied."Did anything stick out to either of you?"

"What do you mean?" Deucalion asked as he got plates for the three of them and doled out the remainder of the waffles. He slid a plate over to Lydia.

"Thanks. I mean did anything seem like it could somewhat resemble the killings?"

"Well," Val started, "I was reading the Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian, and Russian books, and that shit is all myths about woodland creatures. Kind of a big pool to narrow it down from though without more information."

"I had a feeling that might be the case," Lydia sighed as she chewed a bite of waffle.

"I guess that means my Swahili book is right out," Deucalion said. "It was mostly lore from desert cultures. There were a few rain forest entries here and there. I left notes as well."

"I didn't know you spoke Swahili," Val said.

"Passably. I had a lot of time to travel back in the day."

Val laughed. Lydia didn't know, but it was their inside joke of being so much older than the teenagers they constantly found themselves around.

"Thank you," Lydia interjected. "What about the Turkish one?"

"I only know modern Turkish form dealing with packs there, it was hard to understand the ancient stuff considering how much Persian it had then. I left you with notes on what I could decipher though."

"Hmm, my escapades with the Latin books weren't much better. And I still don't think the Argent's bestiary has anything for us."

Val finished cooking the last of the eggs and piled them and the sausages on a plate and brought them to the table to hand them out.

Once Val was out of earshot, Lydia leaned across the counter to Deucalion and whispered, "Why do you like her?"

Deucalion was thrown off by the sudden change in conversation. "What?"

"Why? Hurry up."

"We're similar, I guess," he whispered back. "And we understand each other. Why do you care?"

"Val seems nice and I know you purely as a horrible person. I don't want to see her get hurt."

"I'm pretty sure she can handle herself."

"Still."

Lydia clammed shut when she heard Val's footsteps carrying her back to the stove.

Val put sausages on their plates and put the empty plate back on the counter. "Okay, the hungry hoard is satiated. What do you guys want."

"Sunny side up?" Deucalion asked.

"Alright. Lydia?"

"Scrambled."

"Coming right up," Val said and turned back to the stove.

Lydia eyeballed Deucalion who narrowed his eyes slightly.

Their silent war of gazes was interrupted when Stiles shouted from the table. "These eggs are fantastic, Val!"

Val laughed, "They're just eggs, kid."

"They're good though."

Lydia turned to look at Stiles who was busy justifying his compliment to Malia and caught Scott's eye instead. She knew he was listening to her conversation with Deucalion, who was now turned to the stove and helping Val by taking the discarded eggshells as she cracked eggs into the pan.

Lydia mouthed so no one could hear, "I still don't trust him."

"I know," Scott mouthed back.


End file.
